RANDOM REMARKS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 555, 2 April 1913, Page 2

RANDOM REMARKS.

By Onlooker. The recognised holiday season fittingly ends at Easter, and the average man settles down to the steady routine of life content to look back on the good time ne haß had. In addition to the retrospective glance there is a probability that the average mortal also keeps at least one eye lifted in, a general survey of future possibilities. With one eye surveying the past, and the other focussed on the future, it is little wonder if the average person gets a trifle careless about the present. This habit may be held accountable for the little shortcomings of mankind, and it appears as though a third organ of vision was necessary in order to properly arm the average person against the numerous pitfalls of life. It is a subject worth studying, but in the holiday season one haß so little time for abstract thought, and in winter Parliament is sitting.

There are many charges levelled against local authorities by aggrieved ratepayers who are content to allow the other fellow to do the public work while they do the complaining, and the opportunity will be granted to the public of asserting its opinion about the borough council in a few short weeks. During the past year there have been radical changes in the local council, no less than five new members having been elected. For a time the changes were almost kaleidoscopic, and the average citizen began to wonder if the strain of office was toa great to be endured by the other average citizen. However, with the end of the term in sight the councillors settled into their stride, and good business has been the result. It seems a pity that just when a policy of work has been inaugurated a team should be called upon to account for its joint and several stewardship, with the possibility of being peremptorily consigned to private life.

It is fitting and right, however, that the people should be given the opportunity of expressing an opinion concerning the policy and actions of the individual members of any public body. Fair criticism is, or should be, a healthy stimulant to anyone, to say nothing of the excitement and interest attaching to an election of any sort. In ordinary local bodies there is very frequently a well defined path to follow, and consequently little scope for the well meaning critic. However, in new centres, where the policy laid down by the first council is the foundation of progre.ss for the town, the scope for criticism is unlimited. It has been said that only the person who has no character to lose should attach himself to a public body. This may be only the facetious expression of a successful politician, but it contains the grain of truth which is to be found in all platitudes. Such sentiment will not deter the public spirited manhood of Te Kuiti from offering its best services to the town; neither will it deter the critic from expressing his opinoin in cfendid terms of the doings of our public men.

We are being constantly told that this is the age of the specialist. That the strenuous life of modern times demands the utmost from everyone in his own particular line. That competition is the parent of efficiency, and that in order to justify his, existence the modern man must compete unceasingly. I have a shrewed suspicion that things were ever thus. The natural egotism of the existing generation impels us to the belief that our own efforts are greater, and our results more material than were those of our forebears. The advocates of the specialist occasionally get rudely shocked at the spectacle of a man who has always been regarded as an expert being outclassed by the merely average person. Such an occurrence took place at the Ohura Show in?,the driving competition, and the victim on that occasion is evidently still out of luck. He has been in more than one mix-up with horses and vehicles since, and only last week had the doubtful pleasure of witnessing a horse doing circus tricks with one of his buggy wheels. To be seen to advantage it snems that even the specialist has to have luck with him.