The Christchurch Star. PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. Gloucester Street and Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND. London Representatives: R. B. BRETT & SON 34, NEW BRIDGE ST., LONDON, E.C.4. TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1930. A SAFE PRINCIPLE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19034, 1 April 1930, Page 8

The Christchurch Star. PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. Gloucester Street and Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND. London Representatives: R. B. BRETT & SON 34, NEW BRIDGE ST., LONDON, E.C.4. TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1930. A SAFE PRINCIPLE.

AN IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE was involved in the appointment of Councillor Annie Fraer to the Domains Board in succession to the late Councillor Sharpe. The Council had to consider two other highly desirable nominees, but they were not members of the Council and in the circumstances were passed over. We think that in cases of this kind a City Councillor should always be elected, because in the case of the Domains Board in particular we have had the experience within the past few years of the nominees of the City Council (who were not originally elected to the Council) flatly refusing to follow a course that was almost unanimously decided upon by the Council on an important policy matter. But having stood for this principle in the case of the Domains Board the Council should have followed it out in filling the vacancy on the Hospital Board. An outsider was appointed in this case on the plea that he was next in order at the poll on which the Hospital Board members were elected, but if this argument had been quite sound the City Council should ha\e sought to fill the vacancy on the City Council by supporting the candidate next in order at the council election —in that case a Citizens’ Association candidate. We do not suggest that the cases are quite analogous, but enough has been said to show that the principle upon which the Council believed it was acting in the case of the Hospital Board was quite an unsound principle. It would be wiser in all cases where the council has the power of appointment to fill vacancies on other local bodies from the elected councillors. This is the only safe and democratic mode of procedure. A STUPID LETTER. THERE IS ONE most unfortunate phrase in the letter that the City Council has forwarded to Mr George Gould regarding the removal of the tram shelter from Cathedral Square. “If these considerations of the public interest do not appeal to your client,” the letter says, “ he must of course take full responsibility for any act that will frustrate the effort at a settlement now being made.” If anything could be calculated to frustrate a settlement, surely it would be the suggestion that considerations of public interest do not appeal or have not appealed to those who have already saved the Square from a monstrous disfigurement and who are determined to restore the rights of the public by removing what is admittedly a city eyesore. In view of the unpardonable delays that have occurred in discussing this question, Mr Gould would be well advised to enforce the injunction, because it looks very much as if the City Council was relying on a stalemate to perpetuate the present highly unsatisfactory state of affairs. This opinion is strengthened by the obvious threat in the Council’s letter that if Mr Gould and his supporters do not leave things as they are, worse will follow. The Mayor has said so in as many words, and the plans that have been prepared for tramway shelters on the roadway in the shadow of the Cathedral do not inspire confidence in the final recommendation of the committee. Dr Thacker, w T ho is a member of the committee, stated in a letter yesterday that he was in favour of removing all trams from the Square, and providing for “ full left hand drive traffic,” whatever that may mean, but it is not long since he proposed to stop all through vehicular traffic, and his views at least are not very clear. To enforce the injunction would “ cut the cackle ” and clear the way for something practical. A GENERAL SPRUCE UP. OF COURSE ROME was not built in a day, but it must be confessed that we in Christchurch have been very slow to realise the possibilities of city beautifying. Cathedral Square is the most notable instance of neglect, but then we have the dreadful surfaces of the city streets, the old-fashioned glass verandahs, and the deep unsightly side channels and highly crowned roads, such as it is now’ proposed to put an end to in Cashel Street. What the city needs at the moment is a. Mayor or chairman of the Works Committee who will concern himself not with grandiose schemes of city improvement so much as with the minutiae of city beautifying—a general sprucing up in the comparatively little things that count. Such an apparently small matter as the neglected state of the Cathedral lawn, for instance, though not a civic responsibility, is likely to create an unfavourable impression on the visitor. But one is bound to say that if the citizens are prepared to put up for all time with the present tram shelter, they are prepared to put up with anything, and their sense of civic pride is dead.