THE GLOBE. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1879.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1728, 3 September 1879, Page 2

THE GLOBE. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1879.

The newly-formed Christchurch Ratepayers’ Association is now fairly afloat, and is already doing good work. Although but a few weeks’ old, the Association has shaken itself together in a thoroughly practical shape, and its proceedings bid fair to prove of considerable usefulness to the citizens. Yesterday evening the Association met at the Congregational schoolroom, in Manchester street, when almost every member was present, and a good deal of important business was transacted. It must be a source of congratulation to the ratepayers to find that there will now bo more than a likelihood of municipal affairs being placed upon a more satisfactory footing than they have been for some years past. The Ratepayers’ Association has not been formed one day too soon. Painful as it may be to have to admit it, yet the fact remains that the affairs of the city have been grossly mismanaged of late, and that a thorough reorganisation of the civic powers that be is urgently needed. In wealth and general importance, Christchurch City ranks very high among the chief towns of New Zealand. Yet it is not exaggerating one whit the unfortunate state in which municipal government has been allowed to drift in the city for a considerable period of time, to say that the conduct of civic affairs has been such as to bring the Council as a whole into contempt, besides making it not seldom the laughing-stock of the whole colony. The natural result of this sad outcome of things has been that no citizen valuing his good name, and

having regard for his own individual feelings of respectability, would care to enter the municipal field. The disagreeables and annoyances inseparable from the state of chaos into which tho Council has of late fallen, have boon enough to deter well meaning and able men from coming out of their private life and ascending the platform of civic notoriety, let them bo ever so patriotically inclined, and anxious to give their individual assistance in the good work of administering to tho interests of the ratepayers of the city. We have no wish to unduly ruffle tho feathers of tho fullfledged gentleman in whoso keeping the administration of municipal affairs lies at tho present moment. But wo are keenly aware that the public voice is all but unanimous in demanding that a change—and a thorough one, too—should if possible bo made in tho governing elements which now rulo the city. And the feeling has steadily grown among tho ratepayers that the municipal farces daily enacted have attained proportions such as can no longer be tolerated. There are too many men in the present Council who have become gradually unmindful of what are the real duties which they should endeavour to perform. The civic chamber is neither more nor less than a bear garden, where tho representatives of tho ratepayers air their personal vanities and their private jealousies, and try to throw iced water upon their own heartburnings, at tho expense, of course, of their brother councillors’ feelings, and very much to the cost of the community at large, whoso pockets materially suffer by tho display of “outraged feelings” and the human reactions which follow. The time has long since arrived when a clean sweep should be made of all this paltry nonsense. There are hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of property in tho charge of tho City Council, and to see the gentlemen who sit upon its seats uproariously playing at legislation, as children do at marbles, is more than the well-worn patience of the ratepayers can stand.

However, ws trust this is all now a thing of the past. Tho Christchurch Ratepayers’ Association was the very thing wanted to give cohesion and tone to tho genuine fcoh’ngs of desire on tho part of the ratepayers that a new state of affairs should be inaugurated. At the meeting of the Association last night, its committee stated that they had interviewed a large number of ratepayers to ascertain whether they were willing to accept office, and twelve gentlemen, who had consented to act, were recommended to the notice of the ratepayers. The candidates suggested are gentleman who will do credit to the office to which they aspire. They are mostly men of know capacity. Some of them have on previous occasions served the city well and faithfully, at a time when municipal affairs in Christchurch were on a much higher footing than they are at the present time. We trust that the ratepayers as a body will rally round the gentlemen suggested. They must at once discard all idea that the Association wishes in any way to take tho choice out of their hands. A 1! that the Association proposes to do is to take the burden of work off the hands of tho citizens at large. Unless some regularly organised efforts are made on such occasions the result frequently is that undesirable candidates got into tho Council by some side wind, and absolutely against the wishes of tho majority of tho electors. The election is a happy-go-lucky affair, without backbone, and the result is frequently disappointing and even disastrous. The “ Association” aims at being the working hand of tho ratepayers, and ■wishes to reflect public opinion, and see, function of the Association. The other is the affording to intending candidates some guarantee that their feelings will be consulted, that they shall be associated with gentlemen with whom it is a pleasure to work, and shall be saved some of those petty annoyances which often hinder men of standing from facing the poll. Tho Association has taken its first stop judiciously, after calm deliberation and after full consultation with the largest possible number of ratepayers. Wo trust that the main body of the citizens will recognise tho usefulnes of the institution, and will do their best towards inaugurating a brighter phase of Municipal life.