The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. FRIDAY, MAY 27, 1927. CITY COUNCILS BAD RECORD

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 55, 27 May 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. FRIDAY, MAY 27, 1927. CITY COUNCILS BAD RECORD

WITHOUT any apology whatever for the miserable condition of Auckland’s municipal finances the City Council last evening gave full approval to the estimates of revenue and expenditure for the current financial year. Nor was there an expression of regret for the incompetent administration which brought about so lamentable a record. As was naturally to be expected the old brigade kept a discreet silence in circumstances which would have made speech a condemnation of their own poor service, while the administrative recruits presumably were either too bewildered or too shy. If the council had been a business company or a private firm, there would have been some plain talk about inefficiencv and a dangerous drift. It is clear now why a concise financial statement was withheld from the ratepayers before the recent municipal election. The responsible administrators simply could not afford to disclose their wretched balance sheet. Their policy of secrecy carried them back into office, but it has not improved their reputation as local government administrators. Nothing good can be said about the financial results of the Baildon regime. As the “New Zealand Herald” pertinently has observed, “the condition of the city’s finances can only be described as alarming.” When so conservative a journal declares that something is alarming it is time to send for the police. Happily though the Town Hall abuts on a street that has been defamed by the Chief Constable, there is really no occasion for a clean sweep of municipal affairs by Police-Commissioner Meoffences Muddle and slack administration are not indictable

“Alarming” is the word for the occasion. In spite of the fact that Auckland city rates are the highest in the Dominion, the council has raided its reserves to the extent of .close on £SO 000 within the past two years. Moreover, according to bleak prospects, another raid this year will deprive the municipal treasury of an additional £45,000. By that time a pittance will No wonder h m,f nal m ? rsel for an extravagant administration. Ao wonder our morning contemporary urges the need of a «unmittee 1 . nVeS^I ° atiori ° f C^’S s% tlm r^ponll 'l

Something more drastic than an inquiry by a committee of councillors is required. There is necessity for the practice of dA,dnH? lp A^r nlra JaC u F ? sher ’ s Policy: “Sack the lot!” The P ■ many dismissals would be more effective than another increase in the rates. e Tnan

The worst record of all is held by the tramways department. It lost £46,000 last year in trying to run rival buses off the road. Against that appalling loss it managed to make a profit ol £B,OOO on the trams. Is the silly business to go on* The department has proved that it cannot make its bus transport Why. flounder deeper into a financial morass? As the cobbler to his last, so with the tramways department to its trams.

FORTY AUCKLAND DIVORCES

MR. JUSTICE HERDMAN dealt with 40 petitions for divorce , m the Auckland Supreme Court yesterday. Iu London, only a little time back, a judge put through forty divorces in orty minutes. Our judges do not untie the marital knot with such expedition, but they are getting so much practice of recent years that quicker work may be anticipated. Do angels marry ? They say that they fear to tread where fools rush m and it seems that the marriages most easily broken are those that have been hastily undertaken. Long courtships are most uncommon in this, our speedy age. “Marriage is a contract,” says the law. Judging by the popularity of divorce and the comparative ease with which it is secured, the words, “terminable at the will of either party,” might be added. This would save our judges a lot of time and the parties concerned a considerable amount of inconvenience. At one time it was an uncommon thing for a woman to divorce her husband. It simply wasn’t done. Now it seems the fashion. At all events, there seem to he as many women as men Maying the role of petitioner. And the moral sense is shocked by observing how large a proportion of husbands seek to divorce their wives on the ground of misconduct. And on the other side—what of the men? Are they less faithless (or more faithless) in their marital life than were their fathers? Divorce has become so common that it has lost its stigma. To use a “bull,” it seems to have become, more or less, one of the accompaniments of marriage. There may be some ground for the contention that freedom from the bond is too easily procured—especially by the speedy “restitution of conjugal rights” route. To make a thing readily accessible is to set the mind toward it. The rest is easy, for “where there’s a will there’s a way.” JUTLAND AND ITS CRITICS PEOPLE are becoming tired of these repeated criticisms of the Battl" of Jutland, of Jellicoe and Beatty and other British admirals, whom the critics apparently expected to obliterate the German High Fleet without the loss of a British ship. We can all fight battles in our minds after they have been won and lost, and can despise the tactics of the men who fought them in actuality. Any boot is good enough to kick the dog that didn’t swallow the bone whole. The latest critic is Admiral Harper, who has published a book “The Truth About the Battle of Jutland.” Without having read it, one may remark that it has a good selling title. Admiral Harper blames Earl Beatty; others have blamed Lord Jellicoe. Of course, Lord Jellicoe forbore to reply to criticism, and it is not to be doubted that Earl Beatty will also preserve the dignity of silence. Such criticism serves no good purpose, reopens old wounds, and is scarcely in accord with the dignified traditions of the Navy, " J