THE MAYORALTY.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 72, 22 September 1898, Page 4

THE MAYORALTY.

Efforts are, we understand, being made to induce our present Mayor, Mr. J. R. Blair, to stand again for the office he has filled so well during the past year. Mr. Blair's long and intimate connection with Wellington, his undoubted business ability, his experience on local bodies, and his possession of that leisure that falls to the lot of those who are able to retire from active participation in private business, constitute him, in many respects, an ideal First Magistrate for the city, and it is to be hoped that he will feel able to receive favourably any representations made to him. The city is safe in his bauds, for if he errs it is on the side of over-caution. We have ourselves on one or two occasious felt constrained to urge him to take a more sanguine view of muuieipal expansion, and to look with greater favour on the schemes for municipal activity now so prominently before the public. Caution in da3 T s like the present is certainly preferable to a restless desire for any wild-cat plan than can possibly be labelled progressive, but in a young country like our own, where a nation is in the building, and where growth is astonishingly rapid, caution alone will not suffice. Wedo notdoubt for a moment that Mr. Blair desires to see the city advance along the lines of modern municipal reform, and when once he is convinced of the desirability of any improvement it would be hard to find a better man to have at the head of affairs in carryiug it out. If Mr. Blair retires this year [ we are confident that both he and his fellow-citizens will feel that his work for the welfare of the city was prematurely j ended. We sincerely hope that he will again permit himself to be nominated, and in that event there is little doubt that his election would be assured.