Septcmher 1, 1913. 



TOPICS OF THE MONTH. 



689 



the Greater Melbourne Council being 

 out of touch with public opinion. 



Nobody can say that the modern 

 Greater Melbourne Movement has been 

 hurried. It dates back to about iSq6, 

 when a demand was made for an im- 

 practicable Unification. Within two 

 years it was realised that the ]iurely 

 local coimcils, if grouped into natural 

 amalgamations, will always have cer- 

 tain work to do concerning local street 

 lighting, road cleaning, re]")air and con- 

 struction, storm water drainage, small 

 gardens and playgrounds, pitching 

 rights-of-way, local libraries, etc. So, 

 by 1898, the movement began to cry- 

 stallise in favour of a kind of L.C.C. 

 for Melbourne. In that year the Age 

 began its able, powerful and sustained 

 advocacy of the great reform. In 

 November, 1898, the first of a long 

 series of conferences was held. Then 

 came the adoption of the movement 

 by the A.N. A. Metropolitan Com- 

 mittee. Next there was the incon- 

 clusive Royal Commission of 1900-1, 

 only one of whose members, Air. P. J. 

 O'Connor, had the courage to support 

 a Liberal scheme. Before this Commis- 

 sion, the late Mr. Thvvaites submitted a 

 detailed scheme for a council of 100 

 members with electorates based on both 

 population and valuation, at the same 

 time grouping the existing municipali- 

 ties into ten local councils. The advent 

 of Federation, and a crop of fresh 

 issues, swung public attention in new- 

 directions for a few years, but the move- 

 ment grew steadily, through the work of 

 the A.N. A., various progress associations, 

 and — most pressing force of all — the de- 

 mands of the suburbs for tramway ex- 

 tensions, which, in view of the expira- 

 tion of its lease in 191 6, the tramway 

 comp<iny refused. In 1907 there was 

 another Royal Commission, but without 

 any metropolitan reforms resulting. In 

 1 910 the pressure of the tramways prob- 

 lem began to be so great that both the 

 State Government, and the municipali- 

 ties felt that the whole question must 

 be faced. The more conservative ele- 

 ments in the community drafted a Met- 

 ropolitan Tramway Trust Bill in 191 i, 

 and sought to get the tramway issue dis- 

 posed of by a perpetuation of the dele- 



gate board system. In this year, how- 

 ever, the Liberal Ministry, under the en- 

 lightened leadership of Mr. Watt, took 

 the step which ought to have been taken 

 by some government twenty years be- 

 fore — accepted the federal principle, 

 and pledged itself to introduce a mea- 

 sure before the end of the present par- 

 liament to give civic Home Rule to the 

 metropolis. The same year a municipal 

 conference was convened by the Essen- 

 don Council, to devise a plan for a 

 metrojjolitan municipal authority, to 

 deal with utility services, for submission 

 to the Government. On May 2. 19 12, 

 this conference completed its work, and 

 transmitted to the Premier a report of 

 a Liberal character, to which was ap- 

 pended an antagonistic memorandum 

 from the town clerk of the old city. 

 The Labour Party has had a Greater 

 Melbourne programme for ten years, 

 and has revised it in a number of dras- 

 tic directions within the past twelve 

 months. Many reformers favour the 

 drafting of a constitution for the 

 Greater Melbourne Council, by a Con- 

 vention, but the W^Ttt Ministry prefers 

 to take responsibility for a concrete 

 plan, and with this decision many are 

 quite content. 



W^-iting, with some little experience of 

 public life on both sides of the water, I 

 am convinced that Greater Melbourne 

 will never be able to guard herself from 

 the evils of other lands, and develop her 

 corporate life along wholesome and en- 

 nobling channels, unless she be armed 

 with such a Council as I have very 

 briefly discussed in this article. The 

 fear that it will be swamped by the ex- 

 tremist elements in the metropolis, be- 

 cause of the adoption of a popular 

 franchise, is not borne out b}- the ex- 

 perience of the United Kingdom, or 

 any other British dominion. The fear 

 that it will assume control of sources 

 of revenue without compensation to 

 supplanted authorities or vested inter- 

 ests is an insulting reflection upon Par- 

 liament and people, which nothing that 

 has happened in Australia justifies. 



The key to a hundred social reforms 

 in .Melbourne is a Greater i\Ielbourne 

 Council, broad-based upon the people's 

 will. 



