The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland. N.Z. MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 1927. AVONDALE JOINS THE CITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 123, 15 August 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland. N.Z. MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 1927. AVONDALE JOINS THE CITY

GREATER AUCKLAND lias received a decided impetus by the decision of the ratepayers of Avondale to join the city. Saturday’s poll shows clearly that the trend of the times is for amalgamation and the larger issues, as opposed to parochialism. Despite an opposition which was fiercely expressed, 1,260 ratepayers voted for amalgamation, and only 553 against. It thus becomes apparent that there was considerably more noise than force behind the opposition. There was more than ordinary interest in this poll by reason of the fact that the Mayor of Avondale, Mr. 11. Tiarks, with his followers, was most emphatically against the change. The opponents of amalgamation had not spared, the administration of the City of Auckland in their criticism: in fact, their references to the manner in which the business and transport undertakings of the city had been conducted were most scathing—and in some measure deserved. This notwithstanding, the ratepayers of Avondale voted against the advice of their local representatives by two to one. Was it a vote of no confidence in the Mayor and Council of Avondale?

That question cannot be answered in the affirmative. It is true that the local administration had come in for some harsh criticism, especially in regard to its financial position; but it.is also true that the administration succeeded one that had left things in a very tangled financial position, and it would have taken considerable genius to have steered clear of the accumulated embarrassment. The poll really indicates that an overwhelming majority of the ratepayers of Avondale had decided that, the position had become too involved for local management to extricate itself without undue strain on a limited number of people in a small and impoverished area, and had wisely eoneluded that its affairs would be best administered as part of a large and wealthy city. Coining so soon after the absorption of Tarnaki into the city, the decision of Avondale, so emphatically expressed, is rare stimulation for those who vision the splendid future of a greater Auckland. Immediately adjacent to the city are the boroughs of Newmarket, Mount Eden and Mount Albert. Judging by the trend of public feeling with regard to amalgamation, it will not be long before they, too, come into the city, despite the opposition of those who are inspired by an ineradicable parochialism. In the opinion of experts, it is incontestable that one large body can be more economically administered than a number of small bodies; and there is a lesson regarding the costliness of a multiplicity of overlapping interests in the fact that the local body debt of the Dominion has doubled itself in the last six years, and that in twelve years the taxation by local government bodies has more than doubled. If this increase is in any great part due to there being too many local bodies, it is high time that the ratepayers of other boroughs sensed the advantages of amalgamation and acted as have the ratepayers of Avondale.