MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL OPINION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 110, 12 May 1938, Page 6

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL OPINION

"THERE is a tendency in some quarters to assume that the municipal elections offer some guide as to the run of opinion on national politics, but there is danger in arguing on that assumption. Mr. Rogers has secured a vote which is beyond the. total which any Labour candidate for the Parliamentary seat of Wanganui can reasonably expect to poll, because of his popularity. Dunedin, which is a strong Labour seat centre, has turned down the Reverend E. T. Cox after lie had been in office for two terms, at a time when a Labour Mayor should have some advantages for the city. In Wellington a Labour member of Parliament and a member of the City Council, MT. Chapman, has been decisively defeated by Mr. Hislop, who has been in the Mayoral chair for a long time, and during that period made an ill-starred entry into National politics and failed signally. In Auckland, another Labour stronghold, the Labour representative, Mr. Sayegh, has been defeated for the Mayoralty by Sir Ernest Davis, who retains his hold thereon. In each and every case, however, there is a similarity of circumstances, the combination of personality, organisation and popularity. Where the Labour candidates have scored has been in the matter of organisation. An organisation which dissolves loses the experience which it has gained, but when an organisation is maintained it gathers experience out of its defeats. The campaigns in the provinces depend more upon the public knowledge of the candidates, and this is more easily come by through personal contacts where the community is a small one, but it is becoming increasingly plain that in the larger centres of population organisation is essential, and no man can secure his return in municipal politics by his own unaided efforts. Seeing that the Labour Party has this advantage, is it desirable to enquire whether it is wise to allow that party to continue to be opposed by the cry of keeping politics out of municipal affairs? The cry is not being heeded as it once was. Municipal polities, whether desirable or not, are becoming linked up more and more with political parties, and the National Party will, in all probability, be compelled by the necessities of the situation, to enter the municipal arena.