The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. FRIDAY, JULY 15, 1927. A MUNICIPAL DREAM

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 97, 15 July 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. FRIDAY, JULY 15, 1927. A MUNICIPAL DREAM

A SCHEME for the revision of local government administration in this community was submitted to the Ma.for of Auckland to-day by a deputation of civic idealists, who are practical enough to see very clearly that the existing system yields poor results. The proposals, though soaring to the rosy zone of perfection that men attain only in dreams, are worth close study by the ratepayers whose knowledge of defective and blundering municipal control is an expensive experience. The promoters of the scheme reveal the complexities of local government and the deplorable waste of public money involved in the excessive administration.

Details of the elaborate scheme of revision are published in our news columns to-day, together with a chart which, in the dusk with a light behind it, would look rather like a zeppelin ingeniously adapted to propagandic flights. If, however, it be taken less fantastically and looked upon as the web of a monstrous municipal spider, it shows at once that there is little hope for the ratepaying creatures caught in its criss-cross meshes. Its designers urge upon the community the adoption of a less complex system of municipal administration. The most obvious flaw in the visionary scheme of revision is that its objective represents something much too good ever to become true. There are twenty-three local authorities in the Greater Auckland area. In addition there are eight local boards separate and independent of each other, and also four controlling bodies, not elected but appointed, responsible to the Government, not to local electors. Over all these, acting as their guides, philosophers and friends, there is almost an equal number of Auckland metropolitan and provincial legislators in Parliament. Since it would require a Carlyle to describe them, the average ratepayer may he content to note that the sum total of their services is not yet big enough to command an outburst of enthusiastic and grateful praise. Separately, or together, they cannot, at least, abolish unemployment. It would be easy enough to cite convincing proof of the extravagant; incapacity of local government administration. The earnest citizens, who seek a better system, are satisfied with noting briefly, hut quite effectively, that local government in the Auckland metropolitan area is not satisfactory now ; also that, in one year, it lias been necessary to set up three commissions of inquiry at a cost of about £B.OOO without any results at all. It is proposed that- reform sliquld go in the direction of establishing a metropolitan council, a sort of Municipal Parliament, consisting of thirty elected members representing the ten parliamentary divisions in Greater Auckland. This supreme council would have control of finance with power to raise loans and levies, and allocate appropriations to the various local councils. Why add to the present confusion? What is wanted is less control numerically and a better type of administrator. Ability and inspired leadership are the main needs of to-day. Unless and until these are discovered, the scheme for local government revision must he taken and treated as a beautiful dream.