25th Nov.
For many years a demand has been made in the local Press at intervals for the admission of reporters to the meetings of the Municipal Council. The minutes of these meetings are published now eight days after each meeting; this is better than on the French side, where the minutes are not published until four weeks after
naturally like' to know without even the meetings; and ratepayers would the delay of a week what their Com-j mittee have done. If anything of importance has occurred, it generally leaks out,.and those who care to enquire can learn what has been doing, but it would no doubt be more satisfactory to the public if they gould read a full report of' what has gone on in their newspaper the next morning. The minutes as published, too, are unsatisfactory because they are -so j meagre. Decisions are recorded, but not the reasons for them, and the public often question the propriety of a decision in which they would acquiesce at once if they read the arguments by which if was supted. A The Council's meetings, however, are necessarily closed to reporters, because the Council is an executive, mot a deliberative body; it is a Cabinet, not a Congress. The leading idea of Anglo-Saxon self-government is that those who govern should in the ultimate result be responsible for their acts to the governed. This is the basis of our present local government, and it has been practically demonstrated more than once. Witl us those who have the, responsibility of guiding our local affairs are elect~ ed because the electorate are prepared to trust them, and they are men who from their private life or past public record have shown that their acts have been and are sure to be the outcome of honest intention: A candidate for Parliament. or Congress puts out an address and in meetings before the election tells his electors what he will do, and he may or may not carry out his promises. Our Councillors are elected on what they have done, not on what they: promise to do.
We have by the right of public protest and the calling of indignation meetings an efficient check on our Councillors, and one which those who think any wrong has been done. mistake made are not slow to avail themselves of But it is proposed from time to time that the worl: of the Council should be hampered by the introduction of a further or rather an alternative check in the presence
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.