THE ST. KILDA ELECTIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23492, 5 May 1938, Page 17

THE ST. KILDA ELECTIONS

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Sir.—l have before me the manifesto issued by the St. Kilda Labour Party in March, 1936, on behalf of Mr J. Robinson, who contested the Mayoralty with Mr Marlow in the by-election. Not satisfied with the trouncing he received on that occasion, he bobs up again serenely looking for another good hiding. Under the heading of amalgamation, it states. "Mr Robinson is opposed to amalgamation," and then gives some perfectly good reasons why. Now, Sir it is notorious that the present Government, from which the Labour Party lakes its orders (or is it vice versa?) definitely proposes the compulsory amalgamation of local bodies. Where would Mr Robinson and his Labour Council stand, if and when elected (to use their own hypothetical phrase), in the event of the Government demanding the amalgamation of St. Kilda with the city, without giv-

ing the electors a chance of expressing their wishes on the matter? Presumably, as the party is well disciplined, they would hand over their trust, lock, stock and barrel. Will Mr Robinson say "Yes" or "No" to this hypothesis? The retiring council was prepared to fight to the bitter end for the right of the electors to decide this question for themselves. Following the paragraph on amalgamation is a long one on " Our Water Supply." In their latest effusion, the Labour Party fails utterly to give any credit to the retiring council for the courageous manner in which it tackled this problem and solved it for all time, and that without any additional cost to the ratepayers. This 1936 manifesto, after a very superficial examination of the subject, states that Mr Robinson was prepared to advocate the spending of £ISOO in temporising with the difficulty by having the pipes cleaned out by the' borough staff. It has been proved by other municipalities that within seven years cleaned water pipes were as bad as ever and needed doing again. The experimentally-cleaned section in Begg street showed marked deterioration when reopened one year later. So much for Mr Robinson's " intelligent" grasp of the most serious problem St. Kilda has ever had to face. -I am. etc., Ratepayer. St. Kilda. May 4. ,