The Mayoralty.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20485, 11 December 1934, Page 6

The Mayoralty.

Dear Sir.—The opponents of the Labour Party in Christchurch must be running rather short of ammunition when they are forced to the expedient adopted by “ Elector” in your issue of Saturday of complaining that the Labour representatives on the public bodies are elderly men. There is an immediate and obvious answer to this complaint so far as the nominees for the Mayoralty are concerned, and that is that Labour is offering the city the services of experienced and seasoned administrators who have already proved their capacity. The present is not the time for placing the affairs of the city in the hands of young and inexperienced men. whose tendency to experiment might prove very costly. Apart altogether from the Mayoralty, however. “ Elector ” fails signally to prove his own case, for there are very few men on the anti-Labour side of local politics for whom Pitt’s famous defence can be advanced. One is tempted to say that if the complaint be true that there are too many old men on the Labour side, there are too many old women on the other side, and if it can be truly said of Labour that it lacks the infusion of young blood and new ideas, the complaint is so obviouslv applicable to the opponents of Labour that “ Elector ” does nothing more than draw attention to the deficiencies of those whose cause he wishes presumably to adThe fact is. of course, that the majority of the Labour men on our public bodies are not old men; most of them have not yet arrived at that age at which the maximum of usefulness may be looked for in public office. To say that Mr Sullivan is an old man (or to apply to him even the less harsh term elderly) is to assert an obvious absurdity. lie is very much a young man, and that he is still a very active man the future will, I think, demonstrate—l am, etc., GLASS HOUSES.