The Evening Star MONDAY, MAY 9, 1938. THE COMING ELECTIONS

Evening Star, Issue 22952, 9 May 1938, Page 10

The Evening Star MONDAY, MAY 9, 1938. THE COMING ELECTIONS

Tim campaign for the local body elections is almost ended. Acrimony has had its hour. A word of congratulation is duo to tho audiences, which have shown none of it. If they have kept their judgment as well as they have kept their tolerance and their sense of humour there will not be much wrong with the issue. They have not been dumb dogs by any means, but tbc principle has always been remembered; which was forgotten on some earlier occasions when general and not local politics were in question, that the essence of democracy is freedom for all parties to express their opinions; by the conflict of opinions and of reasoning the truth is judged. It would be absurd to say that the candidates havo all shown the same sense of fundamental necessities. There is no escaping the conclusion that too many representatives of Labour, promoted to positions of responsibility, tend to view criticism of their actions as an outrage. They avo the authorities, and what they do or say is the only right thing. “ I am Sir Oracle, and when I ope my lips let no dog bark.” The dictatorial, or Fascist, quality is stronger in some naturally than in others, but it is made to appear as a weakness of the Labour Movement, to be overcome, doubtless, by more experience. The hope that it

will disappear eventually is encouraged by the fact that the rank and file supporters of the party, assembled apart from their organisation, show not a tracc’of it. To attend .the meetings ■it which they predominate has been to lie in good company. There is value in attendance at meetings. To see a speaker and mark the inflections of his voice, to knowhow he plays or disdains to play on the emotions of his hearers as distinct from their reasoning faculties, is worth more as an aid to judgment than an extended Press report. Three or four of the candidates on the Labour side might have recalled the rebuke of the stern Scotch father to his garrulous daughter; “ Woman, you just 'open your mouth and let anything come out of it.” The issues in these elections are very simple, and we are not going to thresh them to the point of weariness when we have said practically all that we had to say. There arc two candidates for the mayoralty, and in reference to one. when he was first elected as almost a stranger, wo yuoted.the lines:

A lightsome eye. a soldier’s mien, A feather of the blue, A doublet of the’ Lincoln Green —■ No more of me you knew, Mv love! No more of me you knew!

Dunedin has learned to know the Rev. Fi. T. Cox fairly well since then. Ho was returned first, in a time of abnor'mal difficulties, because he was going to do great things. He was returned the second time because he had not been given, on that first occasion, a Labour majority to assist him to do them. At the beginning he had a church at Morningtou. Now he reports that he is managing director of one gold-mining company and a director of another. The electors can judge tho civic record and whether it requires that a mayoral term that has already lasted for five years should be extended' to one, unupproached by any of his predecessors, of eight, now that unemployment in the Dominion, which was the first, cause of it, has, according to tho Minister most concerned, dwindled back to normal. Against Mr Cox is standing Mr A. H. Allen, with seven years of unrewarded, first-class council service to his credit, business experience in full measure, who has lived in Dunedin all his life, displaying his efficiency in sport, business, and municipal affairs alike, and of whom no one, even at a Trades Hall meeting, we should hazard’, will dispute the encomium that “ a more straightforward, honest, and high-minded citizen it would be hard to find.” Mr Cox has never won an absolute majority of votes in a mayoral election in Dunedin. He has stood, till now, in triple contests. It should not be difficult for the electors to choose on Wednesday.

If Mr Allen had less claims of his own a sufficient reason for preferring him on this occasion would be that he stands for an end of the political party conception of council administration.. He will hot know, he has said, one party’ label from another if lie is returned. to office. AH the candidates of the; Citizens’ Association ticket stand to put Dunedin first, leaving general politics to their own development, if they are elected, and they include the business qualities and experience that are a first essential to that object. The caucus system will go; that has been chiefly a tyranny. And finances will be administered with an eye to the future, as well as immediate programmes. The elections for the Harbour Board and Hospital Board should not present any difficulties to this week’s voters. Both these bodies have been very sensibly administered of late, with a view to new needs in prospect as well' as to present needs. They- should not bo disturbed by radical changes that would have the effect of inflicting on them the disadvantages that have been suffered, under Labour’s regime, by the CityCouncil.