The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 1929. MUNICIPAL MATTERS

Southland Times, Issue 20667, 24 April 1929, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 1929. MUNICIPAL MATTERS

Three interesting events in connection with municipal affairs are the speeches of the two candidates for the Mayoralty and Mr Clapcott’s comment on Mr Corkill’s report, and there is this point of similarity connecting the two discussions —in neither are the points of difference very marked. Mr Miller, rendering an account of his stewardship has said very little of a constructive nature. In his review of the operations of the Borough Council during the two years he has been Mayor, there is a tendency, which must develop in any such statement, to appear as the directing force in all activities, and to subordinate the fact that there was a council in existence. Mr Miller is not to be blamed for that, since he was reviewing the work of a particular period in which, of course, he was influential without being the dominating factor. Mr Campbell’s speech covers very similar ground, but contains very much more in the shape of constructive ideas for the future. The Mayor is content to say that he will not vary his methods, but will do in the future what he has done in the past. Looking back over the long record of dissatisfaction in the administration wo hope this promise will not bn made good or that victory will not tend to intensify methods which, dispassionately considered, cannot be applauded. Both candidates touch on the water question. Mr Miller stands by the steps taken under Mr Corkill’s recommendations to reorganize the waterworks, and seems to advance no further, while Mr Campbell, endorsing these steps, which he has assisted to advance, seeks a further investigation of the whole question by an independent expert. Mr Clapcott’s report helps the public to understand Mr Campbell’s attitude on this question. Mt Clapcott in traversing Mr Corkill’s report is moderate in tone while seeking to clear away any criticism of his own acts while Town Engineer, and his offer to assist the present Town Engineer with records is praiseworthy. When he takes up the question of the underground supply Mr Clapcott does not agree with Mr Gumbley’s theory although they seem to reach the same conclusion. It is wrong, however, to assume that the matter is ended as soon as the underground supply is shown to be adequate to meet Invercargill’s needs for ten or

twenty years. There remains the question of cost. Comparisons between pumping and gravitation have been made by two engineers in recent times and neither was sound, because essential factors were disregarded. Mr Corkill’s report further upset those comparisons by confirming what had already been suspected: that the estimated cost of the Dunsdale scheme was too low, and the pumping costs were too high. That is the point for further consideration, and it seems to us that after the waterworks is reorganized the earnest consideration of the question must go on. A comparison between the speeches of the two candidates for the-Mayoralty, as we have said, will reveal only minor differences on matters of policy, but the most important topic of all was not touched by either, and yet it is one that divides the two sharply. We allude to methods of administration, which in Mr Miller’s case have not been dignified, nor have they made for efficiency. As we have already said, if the dissatisfaction had been confined to one or two officers, the Mayor’s methods could not be sharply questioned, but when practically all the senior officers, old and new, are affected there is ground for the suspicion that the Mayor is at fault, and it is safe to say that unless the methods of control are altered the next two j'ears will bring a crop of more serious troubles and expense.