Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1886.

Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 174, 8 December 1886, Page 2

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1886.

INFORMATION ON MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS. • ♦ Ex Councillor FitzGerald last night de' plored " tho dense and perverse ignorance ' whioh he said prevailed amongst the ratepayers regarding the affairs of the Corporation. He may be right in his estimate of tho extent and nature of their information on tho subject, but if ho is right the fault lies, wo think, moro with their roprosentativos than with tho ratepayers. It is quito impossible for tho bulk of the latter to make themselves familiar with the details of Corporation matters, and the councillors, except at eleotion times, seem to take very little trouble to enlighten them The greater part of the Corporation business is transacted in Committees. This will be pretty well understood from the fae stated by his Worship last night that during his year of office he had attended some 34( meetings. Tho City Council only meets in pubho onco a fortnight. Tho committee meetings are not open to the press, and councillors generally affect a solemn mystery as to thoir proceedings in committee it is at those meetings that the real business is done, that details are argued out and data submitted on whioh to base oonolußions. Everything is pretty well cut and dried when it comes before the Council publicly, and the ratepayers therefore have no means of becoming acquainted with the grounds on whioh the conclusions announced Have been arrived at. When the annual elections come round wo generally hear of a food many things regarding the proceedings of the previous year, which it would have been more interesting and profitable to have Jeen acquainted with at tha time they >oourred. If the ratepayers are to wcome better educated W municipal natters generally, we think the Councillors uust become the teachers. Only through hem can the information reach tho public ihe press is in no batter position for afford«

ng instruction as to m&nv details than are he ratepayers individually for acquiring it 1 iirect. It might perhaps dissipate "the f lenso and perverse ignorance" whioh Mr. i FrfzGERALD deplores, if Councillors for each ] ward would periodically, say, monthly br . luarterly, call their constituents together vnd take them into full confidence . Dh all phases of Munioipal business. We i must, however, take exception to one of the words used by Mr. FitSsGerald. . The ratepayers' ignoranoe may bo dehse, ; but wg cannot see how it can, under the circumstances, possibly be regarded as " perverse." Mr. Fit«Gesalo is a lawyer, and therefore aocttstoffled to weigh tho precise meaning of words, and we think he was speaking with Unwonted looseness when he accused the ratepayers of being perverse in their ignorance, hOWeVer dense, when that ignorance Is rather their misf ortuhc than tbeir fault. We imagine that the ratepayers of Wellington, in regard to their knowledge of municipal affaire, are in much the same situation as Mary Melrobe, in " Our Boys," was on the subject of kissing — not knowing much about it, btlt qttite willing to be taught an awful lot.