THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, MAY 2, 1929. THE CITY MAYORALTY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20706, 2 May 1929, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, MAY 2, 1929. THE CITY MAYORALTY.

The polling for, the election of Mayor of the city for the ensuing two years has resulted in the return of Councillor Black by a more substantial majority than the public can have expected any one of the candidates to secure. The anticipation that there would be a close contest for the coveted office has been rather strikingly falsified. It is probable that Councillor Black owes his success in some measure to the fact that the organisation which he established for election purposes was superior to that of any of his opponents. But this would not have availed to provide him with the exceedingly handsome victory which he has achieved if he had not impressed himself upon the electors as a man who combines with a business experience—in itself , a qualification of a high order—a considerable amount of energy and a spirit of progressiveness, . Ho possessed an advantage, over his opponents, moreover, in the range of his personal interests which touched various phases of the life of the community more largely ■ than was the ease with any one of them. He is to be congratulated upon the honour which his fellow-citizens have bestowed upon him. There is no reas'on whatever to suppose that the confidence which they have reposed in him will not prove to be justified by the manner in which he will discharge the duties of his high and responsible office. With Councillor Hayward, in his second experience of defeat as a candidate for the mayoral chair, sympathy will be widely expressed. He has served, the public for a great many years with conscientious fidelity, and upon this record he relied in his appeal for the support of the electors in the contest that has now been decided against him. It is impossible that every member of a City Council, which is re-constituted every second year, can realise the ambition of securing the mayoral office, but Councillor Hayward did seem, on this occasion, when the votes of the electors had to be distributed between four candidates, to have a reasonably good chance of being placed at the head of the poll. The number of votes that were recorded for Mr Jones, the Labour candidate, was sufficiently large to warrant the supposition that if the field of candidates had been larger he might have, as his sponsors counted upon his doing, squeezed himself into the winning position. It is apparent, however, that his candidature did not attract the enthusiastic support of those electors upon whom the mere use of the word “ Labour ” is supposed to operate as a rallying-ery. The Labour Representation Committee seems, indeed, to entertain a very profound misconception of the mentality of the average industrial worker in the city. He may be susceptible to the appeal that is made to his class-consciousness, but he possesses n great fund of practical common sense. He appreciates the fact that the office of mayor of Dunedin is one that demands, on the part of its occupant, a very considerable knowledge of. public affairs and of the operations of the different concerns in which the corporation is engaged and that this knowledge can be acquired only through years of

service at the council table and on the council’s committees. He recognises, also, that there would be a distinct element of unfairness in ignoring the claims to the mayoral office that may be presented on behalf of men who have given ungrudgingly of their time and labour in the service of the community and in electing over their heads a man, estimable citizen though he may be, who has never spent an hour on any elective body charged with the administration of the concerns of the general public. Mr M'Donald, the fourth candidate, had been so long absent, as an active' participant, from the arena of local politics that his candidature was hardly more than a disturbing factor—fortunately, not disastrously disturbing—in the election contest. It was not to be seriously imagined that the electors would view the claims advanced by him more favourably than the claims that were put forward by members of the Council during more recent years.