THE MAYORAL ELECTION.

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13455, 29 April 1914, Page 4

THE MAYORAL ELECTION.

The issue before the municipal electors in the Mayoral contest to-day is substantially identical with that presented to them twelve months ago. The candidates are the same, and the policies for which' they stand have undergone no change, for, if the retiring Mayor has been compelled by experience to criticise it in more moderate terms, he still displays hostility to the work of the last City Council, to which the city owes much in the shape of businesslike administration and reform. Wo have searched tho report of the retiring Mayor's election address in vain for any justification of the condemnation he heaped upon tho last Council, nor does it indicate that he has been instrumental in his term of office in improving upon their methods, or in initiating any defined policy of his own. Mr. Lock has, in fact, followed the lino of least resistance, and his speech at tho Provincial Hall last night was &• confession of the fact. We are bound to say that the explanation of his failure to redeem his pxomise to reduce the rates is unconvincing. Tho promise was definite and explicit. "After a careful, exhaustive, and dispassionate analysis of the Council's position," —reads the concluding paragraph of a manifesto headed, "Vote for Lock and Reduction, of Rates," and distributed J the day before the election last year— "I pledge myself to reduce your rates, maintain your public services in an Efficient state,' and give a fairer distribution of street expenditure." If Mr. Lock really meant by that, as "lie claimed last night, that he would try to reduce the rates at the end of his term, he might have made his meaning a good deal clearer. It was an impossible undertaking however, but it served its purpose. Mr. Lock denied last night that ho ever said he would reduce the overdraft. He- will pardon us for reminding him of tho following statement to- which he committed himself at a public meeting in the Wood Sunday School on April 28th, two days before the election last year: "If elected I will reduce the overdraft by £2000 or lessen the rates "by-that amount without impairing the efficiency." The. rates, as we have seen, have not been reduced, while the overdraft has been increased by £1300 during the year. To-day the electors are called upon to decide between the claims of the retiring Mayor and the candidate to whom he was preferred last year. As a member of the 1911-13 Council Mr. Snodgrass did yeoman service, and in other capacities lie..has zealously striven to advance the interests of the city. His public career has been such as to justify the expectation that as the occupant of the Mayoral office he would prove himself a capable administrator and a worthy chief magistrate. We hope that the result of to-day's election will be to give him the opportunity he seeks.