"I WISH TO THANK."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20252, 11 May 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

"I WISH TO THANK."

CIVIC ELECTION AMENITIES

BY MATANCA

For its sins—or possibly in visitation of the sins of its City Fathers, of both sexes as well as various ages—Auckland has had lately to suffer horrible torments on an election day. It was set. the task of choosing, out of 67 people, of most of whom it mostly knew nothing to their credit, save what they said for themselves in their own advertisements, the 21 whom it would have as tho managers of its business during tho next two years. Now, these 21 could be selected in any one of many millions of ways, and as to many electors many of the candidates wore no nioro than Mr. or Mrs. or Miss X, as the case might be, the conscientious elector, wanting to choose a complete council, was in dire perplexity. After days and nights of pondering, complicated by reading of advertisements, opening of candidates' circulars, scanning of their published photographs, taken no stranger knew how long ago, aijd comparing tickets in which names appeared in a medley of cross-classification, the conscientious elector gave up the major task. Either he refrained altogether from voting, or struck out names just where tho magic pencil pravidentiallv dropped until only 21 were left, or chose the 21 with remembrance of some things ho had been told, and wrote " E. and 0.E." at tho end of the yard of paper, or left untouched only the few names meaning something to his fancy, and so helped to elect but a part of the council.

Many of the councillors consequently sit on that precarious perch known as " a minority vote," and none of them can claim to represent a majority in the wholo constituency. To such a pass can democracy bo brought- by -lack of wise means of government by the people. Intentions Avowed but Unfulfilled. But there -was worse to follow. Through columns of newspaper space tho candidates, unsuccessful and successful, returned to tho charge after the election with their acknowledgments of electoral favours received. Tho intelligent citizen, whether he exercises his electoral franchise or does not, always reads liis daily newspaper; and there ho had his eye caught by yards of " I wish to thank " and " I desire to thank." It was all very well meant—like the kindly act of the elephant who saw a nest of orphaned eggs getting cold through thfe death of tho mother-hen and forthwith sat on them; but it was not well done.

As a rule, the grateful advertisers, with a ruthless disrejgard of the niceties of the King's English, split their infinitives revealmgly; " I wish to sincerely thank," however, may be excused as a lapse or oversight due to the excitement of the occasion, or the strenuousness of the tiring days through which they had passed in their wooing of votgs. But this " I wish to thank is not to bo so lightly dismissed. One or two had poise or directness enough to thank those who had voted for them; most got no farther than saying they wished to do it. They have not done it yet. This disappointing. After his tormenting, struggle with the baffling ballot-paper, the vexed voter deserved something better than this tantalising promise of thanks that so far have not been voiced. The promise, oven though merely implied, ought to be kept. It could not havo been any consideration of space, with regard to economy' of speech or pence, that caused the acknowledgment to fall so short, for a direct expression of thanks could havo been given in even briefer fashion. Circumlocution.

To do them justice, these ladies and gentlemen of very excellent intention probably have 110 desire to avoid thanking tho electors directly and without equivocation. This much may be conceded gladly to them. Yet the awkward fact remains—they have not done it. Doubtless, this interpretation of their words may como to some of them as :i surprise, yet it is based on the plain English of their signed statements. Have they got into the habit of this roundabout, non-committal, inconclusive way of speech, and come to regard it as good enough ? There is a certain Circumlocution Office made famous as " the most important department under Government."

No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the 'acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie. and in the smallest public tart. It was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office. If another Gunpowder Plot had been discovered half an hour before the lighting of Ihe match, nobody would have been justified in saving the parliament until there had been half a score of boards, lialf a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official memoranda, and a family-vault full of ungrammatical correspondence, on the part of the Circumlocution Office.

The caustic comment extending that description had to do with a roundabout system of doing things rather than with roundabout speed.: yet deeds and words hunt in pairs, and there is an unfortunately intimate relationship between ways of doing things and ways of talking about thorn. The councillor who wishes to

thank and gets no farther is apt to wish to do other things without proceeding at once in direct fashion to do them.

It is part of the indictment of a good deal of public business everywhere that to talk about it in a roundabout manner is made a substitute for getting it done. Even outside critics of- public management—and inside critics, for the matter of that—arc prone to deal in inconclusive generalities rather than corne to grips with specific things. A revolution would be happily wrought if only this habit of speech were broken. Of the many matters of business considered in the Circumlocution Office famous in fiction it was written —

Boards sat upon them, secretaries minuted upon them, commissioners gabbled about them, clerks registered, entered, checked and ticked them off, and they melted away. In short, all the business of the country went through ithe Circumlocution Office, except the business that never came out of it; and its name was Legion.

The fiction is not, ( S0 •remote from the fact that it can bo ignored as wholly Imaginative. Intention and Deed.

Truth to tell, the world is full of unharnessed wishes, of stars not hitched to waggons. Intentions arc often stillborn. What goes often by the name of •sympathy is frequently little more than a cold and pitiless interest. It is dangerously possible to "dabble in the fount of fictive tears " and to " divorce the feeling from her mate the deed." It is something to wish—if it pass over into effective will; but a good intention has an immoral reaction if it become no more than that.

This, then, is the moral to be pointed from " T wish to thank." Not to pillory the estimable users of so conventional an expression, but to remind ourselves of the peril of such loose and circuitous ways of treating things that are crying to be done, can hero be honestly pleaded as sutficient justification for calling attention to its weakness. "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride." They are not horses, much less road-rollers, and tramcars, and bridges, and wharves, and street lights, and playing fields—and thanks. Good intent is laudable, but there is an old proverb about paving which is not yet out of date, albeit the place to which it refers is 110 longer a subject of solemn discussiofi "in the best circles." Perhaps—the suggestion is added in hope—the successful candidates have agreed to convey their thanks by their alert and diligent attention to business, and for the present are content, therefore, to "mean the thanks." they " cannot speak.". ;