LIKE A COMIC OPERA.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 208, 2 September 1926, Page 12

LIKE A COMIC OPERA.

AMERICAN CITY GOVERNMENT. CONTRAST WITH N.Z. •IMPRESSIONS OF A TRAVELLER. "America is an amazing country. Your private businesses are conducted in the most highly efficient manner imaginable. But the business of your cities —your municipal governments —is like a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. 1 can't understand it." Mr. Herbert Gladstone Hill, of Hamilton, who is now on a visit to America, said in an interview at Rochester that he found the city governments there like a comic opera. In Rochester he found that a city manager plan of municipal government was being arranged under the system that had been in operation in New Zealand for many years. Rochester had modelled its plan on the New Zealand system because the authorities considered it the most efficient manner of governing municipalities known. City managers were America's idea. New Zealand had a manager at New Plymouth, but the case was only an experiment. The other local bodies in the country were interested in the experiment, and watched its development. They had not decided to appoint general managers. In every centre there were many citizens of ability and leisure who were prepared to otter their services in the public interest; the citizens believed in dividing the cit& into two major departments, with the town clerk and the city engineer as the departmental heads, and the councils acted like boards of directors. New Zealand had good habits ol municipal government. Twelve men of ability could always be found to sit on a board. They knew all about their business, and could be trusted to do it properly. They made no private profit trom the work, and there was no graft. Partisan politics were not talked of in municipal government, but were strictly banned. "Who is the best man for the job?" was the question. Few people considered anything else; and then they Aoted the man for the job. Party politics were strictly taboo. The governing bodies were families that the people called the "city fathers." Everyone had I a sort of paternal affection for them. I The Mayor was head of the family, and jhe did his work in council with the members, whom he sometimes called "young fellows." They were*generally men with a certain amount of the veneration that attaches to grey hairs, and often rejoiced in a comfortable store of wealth. Generally, too, they were still taking an active part in the business life of the city, and joined up their public duties with those of private men. The ceremonial head was the Mayor. He presided at meetings and conducted official welcomes, was the chief citizen, and the responsible head of the city committees. But his power was limited. He could not impeach a public office- | holder. That must be done by the council. The committees did the hardest ' work of all. The members must give a great deal of time, and tinder them , the greatest business of all —the running [of the city—w r as done in such a way l that everything in the city was businesslike and orderly.