COUNCIL BY-ELECTION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23073, 25 June 1938, Page 14

COUNCIL BY-ELECTION

The Labour Party, by its nomination of a candidate for the City Council vacancy created by Sir George Richardson's death, has placed itself definitely off-side in municipal affairs. Sir George's first election to the council was independently achieved in the face of Labour's competitive effort to win a majority of seats, and he never allowed party politics to influence his attitude to public questions. The votes on several occasions cast for him proved how high he stood in general regard. In the recent election he was allied with a movement brought necessarily into existence to check Labour's endeavour to rule the city on party lines, but this alliance did not commit him, any more than it did others on that defensive "ticket," to drop his independent exercise of personal judgment. In view of all the circumstances, it would have been an entirely reasonable, not to say gracious, action for Labour to have refrained from seeking to fill his place with a party-political councillor of its own colour. The verdict of electors, on a broadly democratic franchise, was decisively against such motives. It ought to have been accepted with sufficient sportsmanship—not to mention other grounds —to allow the victors to find their own substitute councillor. Failing to view things in this way, Labour has put the city to the expense of another election within a few weeks of the last. It has a right to do this if it be so minded. This right cannot be disputed. But it is the mind revealed by the decision to contest this particular vacancy that is gravely wrong. Electors will, no doubt, take full cognizance of this, and express their judgment accordingly. So doing, they will seek no advantage over Labour, but merely make up their minds to hold what they have already won, in the interests of the whole municipality.