The Mayor and the Council.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19611, 6 May 1929, Page 10

The Mayor and the Council.

The ofßcial counting of the first preferences of the voters for the candidates for election to the City Council shows that the first sixteen J places are held by nine Citizens' Association candidates, six Socialists, and one Independent. The valid votes numbered 29,484, and the first prefer- \ enee totals were:— ] Citii«ns' Association .. 1,4,902 i Üboar .. .. 13,047 ! Independents .. • • 1,535 If the Council ought to consist of J members representing the parties in this proportion, there would be eight non-Sooialists, seven Socialists, and one Independent. The complicated and futile arithmetic of the P.B. system may give this result, but it may turn out that there will be nine non-Socialist members and either six or seven Socialists. Between the two results there is to the eye no difference to speak of, but if the odd Independent votes Labour, then Labour will have a bare majority in the Council (through the Mayor's vote) if the non-Socialists should number eight. This result would obviously mean that the Council would not represent public feeling, since the non-Socialist vote was nearly,2ooo in excess of the Socialist vote, leaving the Independent? out of account. No Socialist would make any but a Socialist his first choice, and the Independents' votes can therefore be counted against Labour. The majority against the Socialists would then be about 3500. If the Socialists, with the Mayor's vote, are a majority in the Council, the anti-Socialist opinion of the City will be betrayed. If the anti-Socialists are a majority, we shall again have the absurdity of a Socialist Mayor presiding over an anti-Socialist Council. This fact suggests that a change might advantageously be made in the law, to provide that the Mayor be elected from and by the elected Councillors. In older days such a suggestion would not need to be made, because in older days municipal government was not made a battleground of political ideas. New conditions, however, make necessary the consideration of new arrangements.

the -fault lies at the gates of the College. The public are very anxious to know what the College is doing, and the newspapers very anxious to tell them, so that when the limelight fails it fails &i Lincoln. We of course do not under-rate the difficulties involved in telling practical men interesting things about the work of researchers. Sir Daniel Hall said the other day that a man who raises Shorthorns is apt to be impatient with expenditure on the breeding of waltzing mice, and that temper has been displayed in the House of Commons when the Vote for the Ministry of-Agriculture includes grants for such apparently ludicrous purposes. But impatience of the kind is pardonable. Although science must often take remote and strange paths, it cannot expect the man in the street, and far less the man in the furrow, to know what it is doing if it does not tell him; and if it can't tell him, as will sometimes be the case, it should not complain if he is not very ready with his support. It is often a disservice to research to turn on the limelight too soon, and when that is the case the wise researcher says nothing. We take it, however, that what the President of the Chamber of Commerce had in his mind on Thursday night was the ordinary work of Lincoln College from week to week, and this the average farmer can understand quite well if it is presented to him in a reasonable way. He may even, occasionally, understand it so well that his comments on it would be both interesting and valuable, and it is to be hoped that the College will not be so shy in future about bringing it before his notice.