MUNICIPAL BY-ELECTION

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21728, 10 March 1936, Page 6

MUNICIPAL BY-ELECTION

TO THJB EDITOB OF THJS PBESS. « Sir,—l thank Mr E. Pariane for reading my letter and for being sufficiently interested to reply to it. I am not a member of any party. I will take an interest -in our local affairs even if Mr Pariane does tnink that that should be done only by party supporters. He wants to know my name. What difference will that make? I am not a position seeker, and consequently do not need' DUblioity. Ido not know Mr Pariane and he does not know we are all square. Yes, I admire Mr Beanland for thinking himself. Being a party man, "Mr Pariane condemns him for it. That is where we differ. If the Labour party was accused of usin*» Municipal Electricity Department surpluses to reduce the rates, it was wrongly accused. It certainly did not reduce the rates to an extent worth speaking about. I think the charge was "that it grossly overcharged for electricity and overburdened the city with rates and used all it could lay hands on to benefit a few of its supporters: • It did make a reduction in electricity charges, but not before it was long overdue, and even then not to the extent that they should have been reduced, I make no apology for Mr Beanland. , Mr Parlane's remarks about its being wise to take the whole of the profits is a bit too clever. In view of the risk the ratepayer takes, a reasonable profit is all Tight. To take all it is possible to get would lead to exploitation. We have experienced too much of that under the Labour party in the past. ~'„„,, i . ' I am not impressed by. Mr Pariane s figures about the trams. • They do not prove a rate was necessary. Why did the Labour party on the trams waste the people's money to get outside accountants to tell it the position? It could have got all that information from its own staff. Those auditors were not skilled in tram management; they were merely auditors with no special skill in management. A good manager requires an, entirely different training from that needed by an auditor. We have heard a lot about the deficiency the Labour Tramway Board inherited. The truth about it was stated by a Labour member of the board. He had got into an unpleasant position, and his Labour friends had left him to bear the brunt „of it. So. speaking at Riccarton. he stated that the board had inherited a deficit of only £SOOO and that it pad employed two auditors to tell it how to strike a rate. It wanted to carry out the Archer policy of "Damn the ratepayers," and it did. And it increased the poverty and unemployment in our city by doing so. The old board would have managed without a rate, and the poor would not have been as poor as thev are. As for Mr Parlane's remark about poof, struggling ratepayers holding sections for speculation, there may be an odd one. f know of two. They are not poor nor are they struggling, and they are both prominent members of the Trades Hafi group. Their interests in their sections are probably small, but the sections are certainly vacant and are being held partly for speculative purposes and partly to give those Trades Hall people a standing as ratepayers. They do not live in the town. . . As regards Mr Parlane's secret, there is nothing in it. If men are employed at union rates it matters not whether they are permanent or casual: in fact it is better to share the work rather than that some should get all and others none. I see nothing in it for hint to complain about. As a party man he may see a lot in it. Permanent employees may be a lot easier whipped into line by union secretaries than casual employees are.—Yours, etc *•.... BATEPAYER. March 9, 1936.

TO THIS EDITOB OF TH» PBESB. Sir,—lt seems a pity that Mr Beanland was prevailed upon to resign his seat on the City Council, as the people of Christchurch" are pretty sure to lose his civic services because of Mr Archer's rosy chances. The former Mayor is by no means a spent force, and there is no one who would honestly say ; that Mr Archer would not, again uphold the dignity of the mayoral office. Does it not appear that these election sparks are purely the result of party differences, and are likely to cloud the main issue, which is that two parties want their nominee to win.— Yours, etc.i RATEPAYER II March 9i 1936.

TO TH** EDHXHtOJ' TH» PBEBB,

; Sir,—At a meeting of the Citizens' Association candidates last week one elector in a question put the dominant issue.for Wednesday's by-elections in a lew terse words. He said the Question was whether our municipal affairs were to be administered on municipal or on political lines; whether the civic administration was to centred in the civic chambers and the City Council or in the Trades Hall and the junta of union bosses and secretaries. There is no question that that is the issue, and I hope my fellow .citizens will remember it when they go to the poll. \ The efforts of the labour party candidates to meet the charge that it is ready to subserve municipal interests to political ambitions and make the council secondary to the Trades Hall are futile and childish. They reply with the tu quoque argument and assert that the Citizens party is also a political party. But in the Citizens party you will find Heformers, Liberals, and Independents, and a pledge of loyalty to either of those parties is not made a test for acceptance by the Citizens* Association, How would a Labour candidate fare if he declined to pledge himself to be unswervingly loyal to. all the dictates of his political 'bosses'' The question of victimisation of council and tramway employees who have not secured the endorsement or approval of the Labour or Trades Hall party, may be, left to the judgment of the citizens; but 1 would say this—that to pretend there is no victimisation is too transparently dishonest to hoodwink any intelligent person. The case of the tramway loyalists as volunteers is understood by all, and neither Mr Archer nor the Tramway Union can defend it convincingly. Why. is there any regular rider of the trams who does not understand the bitter animosity between the strikers—who wear a badge in their ties and the loyalists and volunteers? K Mr Archer and the board do not realise, it, they are innocent or obtuse beyond words. And the testimony of Mr Frank Thompson is overwhelming and unanswerable. The order of spoils to the victors should be ended, and that is why I hope the Citizens' candidates will be returned to the Mayoral office and the council. Then there will be no suspicion of this favouritism and appointments will be made without any reference or thought of the political affiliations of the Citizens' nominees. Labour, however clever or successful it may be, cannot fool all the people all the time. It will come to power again, of course, but a period in the wilderness might help it to realise that if it is to retain public confidence it must Hake far more care in future than in the past to keep itself unspotted.—Yours, etc., > fCXVIS.

TO THS KBITOB r OF TH* P8.E98. . Sir,—l was not paying much attention to the municipal by-election but having received a copy of the Labour party paper, the "Elector/: and finding myself classed (by- Mr J K. Archer) along with more than 19000 electors who voted -tot Sir Hugh Acland for the mayoralty last May, as "one who made a childish jump at the idea of having a titled man as Mayor," I intend to register my protest at this insult to my intelligence on Wednesday next by my vote, and trust that all those have been so grossly insulted by Mr Archer will do likewise.—Yours, etc., WOOLSTON. March 9. 1936. TO THE BDITOB OT THE PJIESS. Sir Your column devoted to, the address delivered by Mr E. L. Hills. Independent Labour candidate, may have the effect of transferring a few votes from Mr.Archer to the other candidates, but at, the 'same time it serves a very useful purpose m exposing the kind of tactics adopted by 1 men who have been elected )to control our affairs and mete out justice to ratepayers and workers engaged on City Council work. '■_ . . Previous to the last municipal election the hue and cry was for a_ public enquiry into the administration of City Council affairs. Two of the strongest opponents to this enquiry were Mr Sullivan and Mr Beanland. Mr Archer stated in regard to the enquiry that personally he had nothing to fear but at the same time he made no endeavour to clean up the mess Mr Hills, in his tirade against Mr Archer, makes it a personal issue at the expense of Mr Archer and leaves others to go scot free. The tactics employed by Mr Sullivan and Mr Archer are the same tactics that are still employed by the majority of councillors at the present time _ , The question can be asked and J direct the question not only to Mr Archer and Mr Sullivan, but to Mr Beanland and every other councillor: is it justice for men continually to waste their time putting in applications and interviewing the engineer for work and to be told, no hope, when at the same time men are being employed from other centres who - have been pushed forward by some councillor or other? In the columns of this paper I have advocated that a tribunal should be set up to try the case of a man being wrongfully dismissed, and that some democratic method be adopted in the way of application for work. It should not be left in control of individual councillors to engage or dismiss any worker and it should not be left to the personal discretion of the engineer, who may probably take a dislike to a man's face. The appointments should be made by the works committee in rotation, according to the date of application. No one can deny that both the Trades Hall group and the Citizens group have employed the most vicious of all tactics, victimisation. Had Mr Archer played his part and Mr Beanland, as chairman of the works committee, done his duty, men who are now in the employ of the council would be pulling other strings. In this election the ratepayers have to choose among Mr Archer, Mr Beanland, and Mr Hills. In spite of Mr Archer's mistakes, I choose Mr Archer. —Yours, etc., March 7, 1936.