The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1895. MUNICIPAL REFORM CHECKED.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIII, Issue 10598, 6 March 1895, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 1895. MUNICIPAL REFORM CHECKED.

To the friends of collectivism -no more adverse circumstance has of late been recorded than the defeat of the Progressive candidates for the London County Council in the elections just concluded. The Socialist or Progressive majority on the Council has disappeared, and the Council is now dominated by the Moderate Party, which is opposed to all schemes of collectivism, such as municipal owning of gas and water-works, street tram lines, &c. Whether the dominant party will content itself with pursuing a policy of “ masterly inactivity,” or will adopt a reactionary attitude by reversing some of the methods adopted by the Council, remains to be seen. In either case, the result will be a serious check to the work of municipalising public services and proving the practicability and usefulness of • State collectivism. Another regrettable result is that the “ unification of London ” scheme and the movement for “ one-man-one-vo te ” in the County Council elections will also be hindered for an indefinite period. The reason for the change of opinion that has lost the Progressive Party 27,000 votes was pointed out very clearly by the Spectator in an article published over a month before the election on “ The Disadvantages of Political Screaming.” In the course of its remarks our contemporary said:—

The action of the Progressives and their friends ia regard to the policy of the London County Council, is an apt illustration of the folly and fatuity of political screaming. If they had not screamed, the Progressives might have done almost anything they pleased in the way of London administrative reform, and have had all London grateful to them for their good work. Instead they roared, or allowed their friends and supporters to roar, a whole screed of grandiloquent and irrelevant nonsense. Socialistic and revolutionary, in the ears of the Metropolis, and raised against their actual policy an opposition which, if things, not their names, are taken into consideration, is

totally unnecessary and beside the point. At this moment the London County Council is the worst hated public body in the empire. The odium it h as created in the minds of thousands of intelligent and otherwise reasonable Londoners is perfectly appalling. It looms in their horizon as a baleful ar.d vindictive organ of spoliation—a wild, beast whose predatory instincts are barely held in chock by the law and the Imperial Executive, ready at a moment's notice to fly at the throat of the Londoner who has anything to lose, and devour him piecemeal. In other pities the local authority may be unpopular with certain classes, regarded as wasteful, or looked on as behind the times; but in none i 3 to be found the passion of hate, loathing, dread and contempt created by the London County Council- Yet m the London County Council has doT^ e Nothing which has not beendone by plenty of other great municipalities. ij, i B impossible to show that the London Jounty Council has been more bocialittio in its policy, more prone to money in proportion to its size, or inclined to try experiments for the of the poorer citizens.

These remarks convey a “ moral ” which may well be laid to heart by advanced politicians of both sexes and parties in New Zealand. If these wish to be in, a position to do useful work for the benefit of the masses, they must place their reliance upon the soundness of their measures and the public sense of justice—eschewing appeals to sex or class prejudices, well as anything like boastful i-eferences to their intentions. ■Tim Spectator, which is in no sense a Socialistic organ, admits that the Coli lectivists on the London County Council *• have done excellent work for London, and have done it faithfully and well,” and this undoubted | fact it is that makes the present reverse most regrettable. What enthusiasts are prone to forget is that there is an element of Conservatism in human nature which rises iu rebellion whenever it is proposed to push progress at a too rapid rate. In this case, it was not the progress that caused the revulsion, but rather the injudicious “ screaming ’* that was indulged in by some of its advocates. Hallooing before they were out of the wood has brought calamity upon the London Socialists. If they profit by the lessons of the incident, they will regain their lost vantage ground at the next election.