Local Elections

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25346, 20 November 1947, Page 6

Local Elections

His Worship the Mayor, Mr E. H. Andrews, who has been re-elected by a large majority, will be warmly and widely congratulated. A very good Mayor for two terms, Mr Andrews has now been given the opportunity by his fellow citizens to be a very good Mayor for a considerably longer time than any of his predecessors. They have paid him the high compliment that his past services have earned; what is more important, they have expressed their confidence in his will and capacity to continue them. He has earned that too, and enters his new term of office with the best wishes, it is certain, even of those who voted against him. Mr Barnes did not run Mr Andrews close enough to give him any anxiety, but close enough to show that a loyal supporter of the Labour Party can rely on strong support himself, even if there is little or nothing in his record of municipal service to recommend his claim to the highest of municipal honours. There is a moral in this, of course, for the Citizens’ Association. It cannot afford ever to put up a weak candidate; and it cannot afford to let such situations develop as. this time, made rivals of two strong ones. Mr Lyons paid the penalty for submitting his name to ballot and refusing to abide by the result. But the inference is not that the Citizens’ Association should bind its members by stricter rules and rely on the enforcement of them. It is, rather, that a much wider, freer, and discriminating system should be sought for and tested. The association might try looking for the ideal candidate instead of choosing among candidates who offer themselves. Mr Andrews, it appears, though the results are not yet final, will have behind him a strong majority of Citizens’ Association councillors. It need not be regretted that Mr Manning, instead of sitting as a minority of one, will sit with other Labour councillors beside him. The majority will not be impeded but stimulated by more various and effective criticism and, it is to be hoped, will be as rarely and as little disappointed when they look for cooperation as when they expect to be opposed. The council should be a vigorous one. It can rely on ample experience gained by members of the last council or previous councils; it has enough new blood to keep experience from growing stale. Personal references may without

invidiousness be limited to two. Mr J. L. Hay’s vote, which placed him at the top of the poll, was a very just tribute to a tireless and enlightened worker for the good of the city. Mr Manning’s place, second to him, was not less appropriately won by a good-humoured “ leader of the “ opposition ”, as he described himself, who knew when to agree and when to stand out. On other local bodies the Citizens* Association, with some change in the balance of groups, has preserved its majorities. Chiefly to be applauded is the electors’ decision to return the four sitting city members of the North Canterbury Catchment Board, which in three years has made itself something like a model of energetic and methodical local administration, unhindered by political divisions and partisanship.