The Daily Telegraph FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1882.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3550, 24 November 1882, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1882.

Our morning contemporary is as good a representative of the apathy ot Napier as the most apathetic could desire. It is not many weeks 6ince the morning paper bemoaned the apathy of the ratepayers that, allowing anybody to cuter the Municipal Council resulted in ducks and drakes being made of the public money. It was not the councillors' fault that they got into the Council; it was tbe foolish indifference of a careless people that allowed such men to manage public affaire. And more to the same effect, aa though our energetic contemporary had been preaching iv vaio, aud found its task a hopeless one. Scarcely two months elapsed from the delivery of this lachrymose article to the time for the nomination of the chief executive officer of the Borough. Not one word appeared on the subject, not even a line calling the attention of the ratepayers to the forthcoming election of a Mayor. The only nomination was that of Dr. Spencer, and therefore he was virtually re-elected on the day of nomination. This fact even was not apparently worth chronicling by the Herald till two days after the event. For ourselves we nre very glad that His Worship has been re-elected without opposition, and, though we might have thought it very bad taste under the circumstances had any one come forward to oppose him, we still think the absence of other nominations was mainly due to the very little interest that is taken in Napier in matters that should command public concern. A very large share of responsibility with respect to the administration of affairs rests upon the Mayor, and many instances arise in the course of his term of office when to his firmness of character the Corporation must look for the efficient conduct of its business. At any Council meeting a questiou may be brought forward, the settlement of which may depend on his casting vote, or even he may settle it by the exercise of his double vote by giving his decision in favor of the opinion held

by the minority. Mr Vautier, when holding the office of Mayor, repeatedly exercised this power, and, though on one or two occasion.- we differed from him in the resolutions that be in that way caused to be carried into effect, we are constrained to say that his ruling was given from none but public motives. It may so happen that the present Mayor may be placed in a similar position, when we trust that he will exhibit the same force of character, and show in the course he may be pleased to adopt that he is actuated by the strongest desire to maintain the efficient working of the municipal machinery.