SYDNEY CITY COUNCIL.

Evening Star, Issue 19722, 24 November 1927, Page 6

SYDNEY CITY COUNCIL.

To find a parallel for tho municipal xnisgovermnent in Sydney one must go to tho scandals which some years ago led some American cities to abolish their councils and institute commissioner control. Tho allegations n hich were made in the New South Wales Parliament implicating municipal officials are not- in tho least startling though sensational enough. For months past the practices of certain aldermen have been told, within and without the council chamber, with so much circumstantiality that it was hard to believe that at least some of the permanent officials were unaware of what was going on and were not conniving with aldermen. Apparently at least one official weiit further, and endeavored, with what success we know iiot, to run a profitable little side-show of his own. Mr Bavin is to bo., congratulated both on his courage and on the promptness with which he has, with only a very small ■working majority in Parliament, made good his word to disband the council and place the municipal government of Sydney under a commission. Presumably tho cleaning up of the Augean stable will begin in earnest when the Commission takes charge. In this connection it has been hinted that Sir John Monash, formerly in command of the Australian forces in France, and now in charge of the big Victorian electric power scheme, is the man whom the reformers desire to appoint as Commissioner. Tho City Council has belatedly made some show of putting up a defence, as it has petitioned the 1 cgislativc Council that its case against abolition be put before Parliament. It has taken some time for tho discredited body to recover from the shock of the first attack. Some weeks ago Australian papers reported that the aldermen had fallen into a pathetic and disconsolate condition, that the Town Hall was deserted, and that the corridors, which used to bo thronged with the “friends” of aldermen, were empty. There was even despairing talk of appealing to Mr L. S. Amery to save tho council from inglorious extinction. But there are forms of retaliation other than political. It is by no means improbable that there is some connection between tho downfall of Mr Lang’s party at the elections —involving the Cancellation of many of the appointments he made and the rehabilitation of the State from tho low ebb to which it had fallen—and the outbreak of industrial trouble on the waterfronts of Australian ports.