AFTERMATH AT AVONDALE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19718, 18 August 1927, Page 8

AFTERMATH AT AVONDALE.

Avondale's decision to join the city has had a speedy sequel in the resignation of the Mayor and three members of the council. As a result, two other members being unavailable in the meantime, it is by no means certain that business can be carried on until the position is rectified. The motive for this action may be, as the Mayor suggested, a desire to preserve self-respect, but it sounds much more like an expression of personal pique. It is true that previous to the amalgamation poll feeling in the borough ran high, but events having gone as they did, the Mayor and council could certainly have maintained their dignity better by accepting the situation and carrying on the work to which they had put their hands than by acting as did the four who decided to resign and then left the chamber. Such procedure did not indicate a very deep spirit of public service. There have been amalgamation polls before, sometimes carried in face of opposition from those in office in the merging district, but there has not been, in the history of Greater Auckland, a previous instance like that Avondale has furnished. It places the borough in an awkward position, and will certainly entail the expense of an election in the very brief time that it will maintain a separate existence. Announced as a gesture for the preservation of selfrespect, the action of the four is more childish than dignified.