It is greatly to be regretted that the municipal elections
have gradually become more and more political. The okl idea that municipal representatives were simply the trustees of the ratepayers' money, and must be strictly guided by local needs and by sound finance, has been smothered. Our regret must not prevent us, however, from recognizing that this result was inevitable. The Socialists are necessarily political. That is the beginning of the trouble, and from that beginning everything else follows. The Socialists have notoriously made the municipalities a nursery for training SOcialists. They have made it a preparing ground for wider Socialist schemes in Parliament. No party has worked nearly so hard as the Socialists for municipal control ; they know exactly what they want, and they have studied the best ways of getting it.
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