TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 92, 20 April 1911, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Public interest ii not proportionate to candidates' interest The Municipal in the city elections. Elections. There are thirty-sis seekers of seats, but this formidable number analyses down to modest dimensions. It means that, roughly, each seat is disputed by two applicants. The quietness here seems to fit in with a general municipal calm in New Zealand. The telegrams show that very many Mayors have been returned unopposed. Mr. Wilford is in this happy band, and therefore tho burgeßses loie the. thrill and stimulus of a Mayoral

fight. Mr. Wilford may sympathise with them; h<s can afford that indulgence now. Those candidates for councillorsnips who have taken h.ills have mostly not received much to comfort them for the hire. Generally the audiences have been as thin as an autumn morning's haze. Even the prospect of the simultaneous Hai'bour Board poll and the half-holiday contest has not yet roused the public. The sayings of candidates, so far. have not been of a kind to promote a- popular upheaval. The Mayor and the retiring council have not felt called upooi to answer the more or lees vague criticism. Some candidates have uttered sweeping generalisations against the. past administration, but tho remarks have- lost dignity by the palpable exaggeration, and they have caused no pother at all. It would be a distinct relief to have somebody out with a moving message— something tangible. The air is oppressively peaceful. The most that can be said now is that the candidates certainly represent every class in the community— Labour and Capital, the Moderate, the actors and the dr eamers, the wise and the unwise. Iheve is a run for everybody. Mr. Fletcher's proposal for the establishment of a reserve Commendable fund (to consist of half Prudence. of any annual surplus) as an insurance against lean years has been approved by the Harbour Board, after a good debate. Tha chief objection raised was that the present reservations for sinking funds and depreciation would be sufficient to secure the board's position. The users oi this argument have rather misunderstood the chairman's purpose, which is to make an unburdensome provision in good years against any necessity to raise the charges during comparatively slack periods. In the ordinary course the amounts for sinking funds and depreciation have to be applied to their proper purpose; they are not available to permit the ,board to lower its tariff. Evenif these funds are sufficient tb extinguish, the liability on an asset in twenty years, the important fact to-day is that they have to be invested tightly for, that object alone. There was a misapprehension that a hard-and-fast allocation of the half-surplus as a reserve fund would bank up a profit at the cost of consumers of goods. A little reflection shows that this' fear is groundless-. When the insurance fund reaches a reasonable figure it will be a simple matter for the board to arrange its scale to make the 50 per cent, of the surplus a* very smßll sum or nothing at all. The new policy does not commit the board to a fixed scale of charges. Readjustments can ber made at the beginning of each financial -year in accordance with the size of the insurance fund and the outlook. Mr. Fletcher has again shown excellent common-sense. At the No-License Convention at Palmereton North on Easter The Point Monday a sanguine spirit of View, found general expression, some of the speakers confident^ anticipating that if there was no slackening in the crusade, the next poll would result in the carrying of Dominion Prohibition. Beyond the Tasman Sea, the opposite party, according to yesterday's cable news, professing to read the signs of the times, is already jubilant, declaring ite belief that the Localoptionists are conclusively and for ever defeated. They are "extremists'," who have "killed themselvee." The president of the Licensed Victuallers' Association raised no point of ethics, no question of casuistry. With admirable candour, he based his faith on the thesis that "the public wanted hotels and wanted good liquor." "Their opponents would never carry reduction, and never carry "SoLicence. He believed the next poll would be the last one." There ie so complete an opposition between these respective anticipations that it would be marvellous indeed if they pointed to a corresponding contrast in the conditions actually existing. Broadly speaking, New Zealand and Australia, colonised by the same race, share the same ideals ; and are face to face with the same social and political problems, and alike | glory in their power of and capacity for self-government. The licensed liquor traffic has arisen out of the same public requirements and is attended by the same acknowledged abuses. Can it then be true that on the one side it is trembling on the verge of legislative extinction, while on tho other it has just been established on euch a rock that it need no longer "fear for ite existence?" Obviously, allowance must be made not only for the point of view, but for the underlying wish that affects the vision, and for the picturesque rhetoric that would present that view with the greatest possible emphasie. Conditions in one respect certainly differ. At the last poll in the Commonwealth the No-License Party sustained a severe setback, in New Zealand it was encouraged by continuing on the path of gradual advance. For some thirty years the change in public sentiment seems to justify the belief that legislation has been the v embodiment of an 'actual tendency, but every step gained has been contested, and will require unsleeping effoi'ts to maintain. And the No-License Party's disappointment in Australia, if it hae led to discouragement, does not mean despair.