CITY COUNCIL BY-ELECTION

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21715, 24 February 1936, Page 9

CITY COUNCIL BY-ELECTION

TO THE EDITOR Of THE I'fiE.SS. gj ri —"Anti-Humbug" calls my bluff. I am'ready to meet the challenge. He denies that the "Labour people represented a political party and therefore a section of the public." I counter by saying that the Labour candidates are chosen by the Trades Hall or the Labour Representation Committee. Is that not so and do not these organisations represent the Labour party and nothing else? As regards his assumption that the Citizens' Association candidates are " equally dominated by political partisanship. I would point out that in the association you will find numbers of all parties—except the Labour party. For example, Crs. Hay ward and Andrews have been prominent members of the United party; Cr. Beanland and Sir Hugh A eland ars probably members of the Reform party, but in municipal affairs they drop their politics and are willing to co-operate for the benefit of the whole body of citizens —not for the benefit of special classes, Euch as the tramwaymen or the council employees. I did not, I think, refer to Mr Beanland as Deputy-Mayor during the Sullivan regime. If I did, I was wrong, and apologise for the mistake. But I say Mr Beanland, as chairman of the works committee, backed up Mr Sullivan in his endeavours to meet the unemployment problem with an enthusiasm no Labour member could exert. Let us remember these things and , leave Mr Archer to multiply the "death traps" on the tramway system which he once condemned. The issue is a clear one. Are we as a city to be run for the profit of a politjeal party, or are we to be run for the benefit of all the citizens.— Yours, etc., CIVIS. February 21. 1936.