NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1100, 12 April 1911, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY.

It is gratifying to note that there is to be a keen contest for the City Council, and especially pleasing to find that the class of candidates offering gives citizens a chance to secure a municipal body in which general confidence can be placed. The restriction impeded by recent legislation preventing any citizen who has business dealings with the municipality from holding office has lost to the city the services of many men who would otherwise be available. While the general principle is sound enough, it is at such times as the present that people realise that a sound principle may produce unfortunate results when pressed to undue lengths. Prominent business people, whose knowledge and experience would bo of great value to the city, are debarred from offering their services because they perhaps have a small interest in some company or concern that has a business connection with the city corporation, and the city is the loser. However, on the present occasion there is a strong contingent of candidates offering, and citizens, if they choose wisely, should have no reason to complain of the city's affairs being in bad hands. While on this subject we should like to direct attention to what we cannot help thinking is an evidence of indifference to their responsibilities on the part of burgesses. We refer to the practice of re-electing councillors in a practically solid body. It is possible, of course, that this is due to the confidence which councillors have inspired by the manner in which they have carried out their duties; but we rather suspect that it is more likely to be the result of the disinclination .of electors to trouble about weighing the merits of the candidates proffering their services. This is not fair to the new candidates who come forward. We should be sorry to see any wholesale rejection of councillors, most of whom have long records of good service to commend them, but we are not at all averse to a certain proportion of new blood being introduced, especially when the new blood is of the right quality.

Within the next day or two Mr. Millar should be able to make known the financial results of. the past year's operations so far as the returns of revenue and expenditure are concerned. As has already been indicated the revenue returns should prove highly satisfactory . from the point of view of the Acting-Minister lor Finance, but less so from the taxpayers', who have provided the money. The revenue should show an increase of over a million pounds, and unless there has been a large transfer to the Public Works Fund, or more than the ordinary extravagance in connection with the administration of the country's affairs, Mr. Millar will announce a surplus of a size damaging to past records. This increased revenue has been derived as the result of increased taxation, increased railway charges, and ths general improvement in trade and commerce.

It is not without good reason that architects are complaining about the conditions of the competition for designs of the new Parliamentary Buildings. We are sorry to learn that Me. Blow, the Under-Secretary for Public Works, has said, in an interview at Christchurch, that "no amendment is contemplated regarding the competition of Civil Servants." This means that the Government architect will be allowed to compete. The unfairness of this is manifest. Mr. Campbell will be able to work in office hours, and employ the services of the Departmental draughtsmen, ?.nd thus he will not be out of pocket. Private architects competing against him will have to pay something like £150 for draughtsmanship and will have to give up time which they might have devoted to other professional work. This may involve monetary sacrifices, whereas in the. case of Mr. Campbell any other work which the competition makes him and his staff too busy to do can be given, like the planning of the Christc'hurch Government Buildings and the Auckland Public Trust Office, to outside architects at the public expense. Another element of unfairness lies in the fact that the Government architect has a much more intimate knowledge of the requirements than other architects can possibly have, and is in touch in n more or less official way with Ministers and other prospective users of the building. Moreover, it is understood that he drafted the very conditions under which he and other architects are to compete, and which they regard as too indefinite. Is it too late to hope that the Minister for Public Works will see that the contest cannot be a fair one if the Government architect is a competitor? Scarcely less objectionable is the Government's refusal to adopt the only method of appointing an assessor or judge who will command the confidence of architects and the public. That method is, of course, to ask the Royal Instituteof British Architects to make the selection. A mere Ministerial appointment will lead to dissatisfaction which is only too likely to be well-founded. The extra expense of doing the thing properly will not bo an extravagance, but, on the other hand, if the competition is not to be a fair one, the designs offered will be fewer in number and there will.be no assurance that the best will be adopted. Rather than have such a fiasco it would ba better to five up the- idea of a competition altogether.