MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 193, 5 March 1887, Page 3 (Supplement)

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.

Notwithstanding their important relation to all that is significant or influential in national life and history, it is nevertheless truo that there has never been developed anything which even by courtesy could be called a science of municipal government. Indeed, it is only within these latest years that the fact that there could be anch a science haB conatantly grown more and more imperious. Monstrosities which are the legitimate fruit of the haphazard system, or rather lack of system, which characterise the government of many citieB ; evils of administration and burdens of taxation that had become almost unendurable ; the astounding frauds which have been brought to light within the last few years in New York and Philadelphia, and the usurpation of power by demagogues through the aid of the mo&t degraded elements of society, have at last forced an inquiry as to what form of muni cipal government will most efficiently correct present abuecs and reduce tp the minimum the opportunities for harm to the body politic. Men begin to ask whether the municipal authority may not be so organised and administered that it shall promote and protect the interests of boththe corporation and the individual ; whether the evils to which I have alluded, and others equally apparent and subversive of the ends ot good government, are inherent in our municipal system or incident thereto. And some effort has been made to ascertain the principles which underlie a legitimate municipal authority and the most efficient means of making the application of tho6e principles practical. Not a very great deal has been accomplished by this study. The problem is Jcomplic&ted and many sided. Its solution depends on careful and extended observation, and the concurrent action of wise, patient, eelf-sacrificing and public • spirited citizens. Tn this study the conclusions of purely theoretical political economists, and of those men whose thought and experience have been limited to special a&pects of the subject, are alike unsafe and misleading ; the tirsfc, because political communities never afford the proper conditions for the applica tion of abstract principles ; and the second, because the entire machinery of government is so interdependent and complicated that successful modifications of any special department imply corresponding changes in all the associated agencies. But whatever difficulties may embarrass the subject, we have good cause for congratulation in the fact that the problem ia being studied, and not altogether 6tudied in vain,

Mrs Alexander, who wrote t% The Wooing O't," is a ehort, stout, elderly lady with a kindly, simple expression and snowy white hair brought down over her temples. She looks as if she could make a good, comfortable flannel ehirt rather than write a successful novel. Florence Marryat, another well-known novelist, is a very large, tall woman with a masculine face, and a fine figure, and her robed are cut eo as to display her massive and finely-moulded arms and neck to the best advantage.