SYDNEY CITY COUNCIL

Hokitika Guardian, 26 May 1930, Page 7

SYDNEY CITY COUNCIL

ALDERMANIC REGIME AGAIN

THE COMING ELECTIONS

.SYDNEY, May 17. The election for the constitution of the new Sydney City Council, under the revived aldormanic regime, is. to take place on June 18th, and although there is much activity in the camps of the Labour Party and the Citizens’ Reform Association, in the coining battle for supremacy at the Town Hall, taxpayers—and herein one cannot help struck, with, the difference between the people in Australian and New Zealand cities—appear so far to be qiute indifferent to the election and die issues at stake. This lethargy and it applies for the most part of the anti-Labour section of the community—will, of course, play into the hands of the Trades Hall, and especially the Red element, who want to be kings of the municipal castle, and possibly will. Not a few taxpayers objected to the establish-

ment of the Civic Commission, which was set up in place of the old City Conucil, on the ground that it was an rn fraction of the principle of “.no taxation without representation.” Now that they are afforded the chance to have .some say for their money in the personnel of the new Council, however, they do not appear to bo greatly concorned, Some of the happenings under the old aldermantie regime ought io be a fair warning to those with anything like a substantial stake in Australia’s oldest city.

Although Mr “Jock” Garden, secretary of the Trades and Labour Council, is regarded as the elect of the Trades Hall for the Lord Mayoralty, should Labour again be in power—and it is making a desperate bid for the reins ol civic government—the Reform Party hopes for a majority, in which case the election of Lord Mayor will be within their gift. They will be lucky to get back with a majority of any sort, however, unless their followers arouse themselves.

The subject of the Lord Mayoralty is always an intriguing one in Sydney because of the attendant possibilities of a knighthood. The Lord Mayoralty has been the stepping stone to the accolade for several of Sydneys knights. Socially, Sydney’s Town Hall has been one of the dullest sports in the city’s life for many years. If the Reformers are lucky enough to take control there, the social life of other days at the Town Hair may again pervade the ole! building, and bring back to it some of its pre-war gaiety. Sir James Murdoch, M.L.C., in whom the civic reformers are not lacking in leadership, is one of Sydney’s best examples of the self-made man. The big retail establishment he has founded is probably one of the world’s largest stores devoted wholly to men’s and boy’s It is surprising whai Scotsmen can do on a little porridge. When James Murdoch set foot in Australia from Scotland he owned little more than the clothes he stood up in. Prudent Scot, he soon got a job, and in a couple of years he had become one of the departmental managers in a leading Melbourne establishment. He launched out in business in Sydney, struck the big banking crisis after he had been going only a year, Imt weathered the storm “kept on rising,” to quote his own trade slogan, swallowed up or rather shouldered out of the way, other businesses neai by, and to-day is the big man behind one of the city’s finest commercial monuments, under whose co-partner-ship scheme most of the employees are on the firm’s share list. The three highly paid members of the Civic Commission which will cease to exist when the alderman take office again are Messrs Qarliek, Morton, and Lenngtt, They have made great savings and turned a huge deficit into a substantial surplus. The Chief Commissioner (Mr John Qarliek) was really only lent by the New South Wales Government for the occasion, and he will go back to his old position as chairman of the Main Road Board at £l6ko a year salary. The future, so far as the two other Commissioners, Mr H. ]C. Morton and Mr Gordon Bennett, are concerned, is indefinite.- Mr Bennett will return to commerce, but has not yet decided which of*the several avenues open to him he will take.

Mr Morton, who came to Sydney from Melbourne, is secretive, and remarks that private matters are for private consideration. Ho was City Engineer jn Melbourne before his appointment to the Civic Commission here.