LOCAL BODY ELECTIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 18258, 24 April 1923, Page 6

LOCAL BODY ELECTIONS.

Dunedin voters will be faced on Thursday with the task of electing a chief magistrate for Dunedin, twelve members of the City Council, five members of the Harbor Board, to represent the combined district of the city and St. Hilda, and seven members of the Hospital Board. It will bo a big tost of municipal knowledge and discretion, but a good deal has been done in the last few weeks to assist the electors in performing their duty. Candidates have not shunned public meetings, and tbe production of rival “ tickets ” for all tbe bodies on which seats must be contested, however it may be disliked on other grounds, has had one good' effect in the stimulus which it has given to the fullest discussion of issues from tbe platform and through the Press. However much may Te wanting still to its information, local democracy should . ba better educated

on matters of communal importance than it has been since the last governing bodies wero elected. Tho contest for the mayoralty presents no issue of policy. It will bo decided upon personal grounds, and as all three aspirants for the position Jiavo given varied service in the past to the public electors should know as much about them as they would of any candidates who might offer themselves. Voters will make tho best of the nominations before them for all three public bodies that require to bo elected if their choice is ruled by the individual capacity and merits of those who are claiming their suffrages, with tho least regard to “tickets.” There is no reason why workers, in the popular sense, should not have a place on tho council, or the Harbor Board, or Hospital Board. But the recommendations which might make them approved should be their own, and not a party’s. Tho real issue of the elections is that tho community should choose those—workers or non-workers, men or women—to do its work for it who can bring the most ability, conjoined with tho widest sympathies, to the task. Tho most remarkable feature the Citizens’ League ticket is its rejection of women’s claims to public office. There is no cause why Dunedin should fear a woman councillor. For tho Hospital Board four women are standing, of whom no fewer than three have given excellent service to that institution in the past. It would be sheer retrogression in public government if none of those candidates should bo elected to do work which, is peculiarly suited to women.