MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 68, 13 December 1933, Page 8

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS

One of the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Bill now before the House touches a question, of considerable public interest, namely triennial elections for councils and mayors. Elections cost money. Triennial instead of biennial elections would mean a distinct saving. Short-term representative bodies, moreover, are apt to take the short view, knowing that if they embarked upon long-range schemes their plans, might be disorganised by a turnover at the elections.'' Short terms also encourage time-serving. . . These disadvantages of the biennial, system are sufficiently impressive to warrant consideration of any kind of' reform that will reduce or eliminate them.. The triennial system now proposed seems at first sight to meet the case. Closer examination raises an aspect of local government which cannot lightly be discounted. Local government derives its degree of efficiency, or ought to derive it,'from its contact with public opinion. That degree corresponds with the activity or passivity of public opinion. Experience has demonstrated that, on the whole, public interest tends to be more or less apathetic as regards municipal, matters. It reaches its peak—not, it must be admitted, a very lofty one—at election times. From that point of view, the triennial proposal has the serious defect of moving public opinion further out of.touch with the Council, and so encouraging an apathetic attitude' toward municipal affairs which already has been patent enough, to give cause for comment. Reform in local government has become a pressing need in this country, and reform in this connection is a comprehensive term. It connotes not only the reorganisation of the system itself, but also the reorganisation of methods of administration. The question is now up for determination, and it is essential ,that public opinion should be awake and vigilant while the discussions are in progress. For that reason the contacts betwen the people and their mtinicipal representatives should be drawn, closer rather than relaxed. That ought to be possible without going as far as triennial elections. It has been sug-, gested in .these columns before, and it is now opportune to repeat, that the better way iwould be to retain the biennial system but. to retire a proportion only; say,'one-half, of the Council every'two years.

.By that means continuity of policy would be better assured, and the public would have an opportunity of introducing new blood into the Council at short intervals both as a means of maintaining the vigour of its administration and of impressing its opinion upon the sitting members. In actual effect it would be a four-year Council, but with the great advantage that the public would have a biennial check on its policy and-administration. It is to be hoped that Parliament will take time to consider this aspect of the Bill very carefully.