THE MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.

Evening Post, Volume XXII, Issue 58, 7 September 1881, Page 2

THE MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS.

«. The election of councillors for the various wards of the city takes place to-morrow. The ratepayers of Thorndon and Lambton wards have shown that they are satisfied with their present representatives, Councillors Maginnity and Thompson, by re-electing them unopposed. The retirement of Councillor Young from Te Aro will, we fancy, leave the return of Mr. M'Kenzie pretty certain, and it is unnecessary to go into the rival merits of the two candidates remaining to contest the seat. The chief interest centres in the election for Cook Ward, where we have the retiring councillor, Mr. Miller, opposed by Mr. Brown — a very good man, we believe, though as yet untried. No attempt has, so far as we are aware, been made to show that the retiring representative has at all failed in his duty to those who elected him, and probably the ratepayers will think Councillor Miller has fairly earned his right to re-election. If the amount of money expended in the district is any criterion, the representatives of Cook "Ward have certainly not only been very vigilant, but very successful in looking after the interests of those by whom they were elected. During the last two years the amount of rates levied in Cook Ward amounted— so we learn from the Corporation books— to .£6127 ss; the amount expended in the same district out of the General Fund, was .£7172 lls Id. In addition to that there has been expended out of the Street Improvement Loan of .£IOO,OOO no less a Bum than £30,750

or three-fifths of the total amount spent over the whole city. This statement may not be read with unmixed satisfaction by the ratepayers in other parts of the city, but at any rate it seems to show that the residents of Cook Ward have no reason to complain of what has been done for them by their representatives in the Council ; and on this ground it would be nothing short of ungrateful not to re-elect a Councillor who has assisted in doing so much for them, and with whose conduct apparently no fault has been found.