The Dominion FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1931. VERDICT OF MUNICIPAL ELECTORS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 189, 8 May 1931, Page 8

The Dominion FR I DAY , MAY 8, 1931. VERDICT OF MUNICIPAL ELECTORS

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the municipal elections is the failure of the Labour Party to make any headway. If Wellington City be taken as an instance, only three of the Id Labour candidates were successful, gaining one seat in every five on the Council. In the case of the Hospital Board the proportion is very much the same and on the Harbour Board the Labour Party has lost the single seat it previously held. On the other hand Wellington returns five members to the House of Representatives of whom four represent the Labour Party. . , , Since the franchise is almost the same in the two cases, why should the Parliamentary electors favour the Labour Party in the proportion of four to five while municipal voters reverse the ratio. A number of causes could be assigned, all more or less influential but the chief is undoubtedly the fact that the Parliamentary elector will vote for the extravagant ideas and schemes of the Socialists because he does not realise that he must pay for them; among municipal electors there is a much more general realisation that they will have to foot the bill. In short, direct taxation in the form of rates touches people closely and causes them to take a responsible outlook in municipal politics. On the other hand comparatively few (about one in ten) pay direct taxes; hence the great majority does not understand that it must pay for social services, public works and the like, and it cheerfully votes for those who promise free spending and unlimited community largesse. The contrast between the results of the municipal and Parliamentary. elections (and it is not peculiar to Wellington) is a striking lesson, therefore, that if democracy is to be saved from its own extravagance, it should be brought to understand that it must itself pay for its demands on the national purse. One method to instill this idea would be to broaden the base for income tax so' that it became .payable by. the majority instead of by a small minority of electors. ■ The careful and canny attitude of the man who knows he .has to pay is writ large in the result of the City elections. First there is the innate conservatism, the community inertia, that returned eight out of the nine retiring councillors and, second, the desire for economy and prudence that influenced the selection of new members solely from among those pledged to these civic virtues. The new candidate who headed the poll, Mr. Will Appleton, owes this decisive endorsement not only to personal attributes but to his greater outspokenness on the need for controlling expenditure. Unlike the taxpayer, the ratepayer knows he cannot have it both ways, he suspects compromise, and wants to know where people stand.

Generally speaking the new Council may be considered a strong one in that the Mayor and most of the councillors have been returned pledged to a common policy and should be able to get to grips with, municipal problems without preliminary skirmishing. Indeed it is important that they should settle down to work without delay for the estimates must be finally overhauled in the next few weeks to enable rate demands to be sent out. No doubt they will find that the practice of economy is harder than the theory but, with the strong backing of public opinion as expressed at the polls, they can proceed with" confidence to examine ways and means of giving effect to the electors’ desire for rating relief.