The Star. SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1879.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 3398, 1 March 1879, Page 2

The Star. SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1879.

It needed not the discreditable exhibition of last night to demonstrate the utter incapacity of the members of the Council to represent the ratepayers of Buch a city aB Ohriatchurch. Two or three of the Councillors are, no doubt, gentlemen of fair intelligence and respectable ability, and were they aBBO' ciated with colleagues approaching in some degree their own standard, they might be enabled to do some service to their constituents. For the rest, they are almost beyond characterisation. It seems to us that since their election in September last, they have learned nothing and forgotten the very little they knew. Ignorant, heavy, dull beyond dullness, they have not even the comprehension to see that Art knows them not, and they were never designed by Nature for any public position whatever. With the leader of all that is intemperate pouring forth the most blatant drivel — never knowing where he is nor what he is doing, or rather attempting to do — on one side, and the very raw material as a heavy dead weight on the other, the wonder is that the exceptional members in the Council do not lose heart and retire gracefully from a scene calculated to inspire them with sentiments of disgust rather than interest. Last night there were two hours wasted — two solid hours of the most idle, inconsequential, and injurious talk. It is injurious when ten representative (save the mark .') men are found assembled to deal with a question which comes before them, nobody knows how, nobody can tell why, and which they really cannot discover a way to get rid of. For two hours the talking mill works, and at the end of that period the Council is no further advanced than it was at the beginning. The proceedings are unconsciously, but most fittingly, described by one. member, who naively confesses that he started, half an hour before, to write a motion, but he didn't know where he had got to since. There is but one thing Buch a body can do to call forth thanks from the citizens. The municipal " conflammorgation " — a word bhe true meaning of which is known anly to the intellectual, scientific, and thoroughly orthodox within the Council Chamber walls — is such that the wisest thing Councillors can do is to resign. If they were reasonably intelligent, there would be no need to ask them to take that course; as they are not reasonably intelligent, of course it would be absurd to expect that they will follow it. It must now be something like a year ago since what is known as the " reor-

ganisation of the Council staff" was firafc mooted. Councillor Buddenklatt, in response to what appeared at the time to be a pretty general feeling amongst then Councillors, was prompted to give notice of motion dealing with the subject. We acquit that genial gentleman from having harboured the slightest feeling of antagonism towards any of the municipal officers. We believe his purpose to have been, as he himself expressed it, Bolely the clear definition of the duty of each officer, with a view to the smoother working of the municipal administrative machine. At that time the Overseer of Works had shown himself a thorn in the municipal flesh, and the troubles with the City Solicitor had jußt began to make their appearance. It was therefore to put these things upon a sounder footing that the Councillor we have named was moved. It was no secret, however, either within the Council or outside, that one or two members held other views, and that animated by feelings of a spiteful character — against the Town Clerk particularly — the motion of Councillor Ruddenklau was to be used as an engine of destruction against some of the officials. The annual election, however, changed the aspect of the Municipal Board. Some of the pieces in the game were moved off! altogether. If any feeling existed such as was popularly attributed, the present occupant of the civic chair was alone left to represent it. The new Council, when they met in September, found the motion of Councillor Ruddenklau on the books, and although they had no complaint to make against the officers of the Corporation, knew no more about the working of Municipal business than they do at this present, and were free from all personal feeling, yet for no known reason — except such as is of a painfully uncomplimentary character — this uncomfortable, troublesome, and fatherless motion has been permitted to drag all through the municipal business until this hour, and the agony threatens to be yet further prolonged. From September until last night is a long time to keep a motion of this nature hanging like a sword over the heads of municipal officers. It would naturally occur to any mind but that of a member of the present City Council, that, upon coming into office in September, and finding a resolution upon the books for which there was no municipal sponsor, a resolution which dealt with matters of which — even if were all scientists — they had no knowledge, the proper course would have been to have suffered it to lapse, or to have " wiped it out" altogether. Inferentially, the motion for reorganisation affirmed that the present condition of the municipal administration is not satisfactory, and this again conveys a reflection that the officers are to blame who permit such a condition of affairs to subsist. The Councillors never viewed the matter in that light, else of course they would not have permitted so many months to elapse without dealing with it. When at last this important subject was brought forward, no one had any complaints to prefer, no one had any suggestions to offer for improvement in the working of the municipal machinery — although that need not excite surprise — and the whole affair was a fiasco, as might, under the circumstances, Lave been expected. The Court sat, the suspected criminals were present bristling with evidence to rebut any charge which could by any possi- , bility be conjured up against them, but there was no allegation of fault, no prosecutor put in an appearance. Yet even then, instead of adopting the course which ought to have been followed months ago, this wretched business is to be still further continued to bring still greater discredit upon the Corporation. A kind of fishing Committee has been appointed to go into the municipal highways and byways and seek out whatever they can find. When the report of this Committee is brought up, the discreditable business will be gone all over again with an equally unprofitable result. We shall have more "conflammorgations " — more drivel, more — liquorice. It is needless to say we protest against this waste of public time — this scandal upon the city. We did protest whilst there was yet time to have prevented such a scandalous condition of municipal muddling, and our protestations were unheeded. If the citizens are contented to live under the aspersion that these Councillors represent them, why should we trouble ?