LOCAL GOVERNMENT
SIR,—In your " News of the Week " you make reference under the heading " A Local Government Scandal" to the Ministry of Health Inspector's report which was recently presented to the Bradford City Council. That report deals with the disgraceful treatment of children at a nursery known as the Bowling Municipal Institution.
You rightly state that it is not sufficiently assuring that the Bradford City Council has taken stern measures to deal with the offenders.
I would like to ask what percentage of local government electors took the trouble to vote at the last election of Bradford councillors ; also how many casual vacancies on the Council during the last five years have been filled under the Local Elections, &c., Act, 1939, by the councillors' own votes, ratepayers being disfranchised under the Act.
It is hoped that incidents such as that in Bradford will, as soon as the present disfranchisement is removed, result in local government electors throughout the country taking a more serious view of their responsibilities as citizens. A 3o per cent. poll, or sometimes less, is an indication of great indifference to civic duty, and such indifference must result in slack administration.
The incidence of the Education Act, involving the setting up of Joint Education Boards and Education Committees, should at least be an additional incentive to all citizens to strive, by their votes, to obtain the best possible representatives on their local councils.—Yours, &c.,
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