Original Correspondence

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 523, 19 July 1881, Page 2

Original Correspondence

We are at all times ready to give expression to every shade of opinion, but in no case do we hold ourselves respon bible for the views advocated by our correspondents.

To the Editor. of the most vicious and weakest of the modes of our local governing bodies conducting their public business is that of constantly using the Member for the district, during his residence in Wellington and at other times, an a sort of agent or go-between. Indeed, so common is the pest becoming, that it has taken quite an epidemic form, and spread throughout the whole of the electorate. No sooner does any grievance, imaginary or otherwise, take possession of the pastoral mind, than forthwith the assistance os the local schoolmaster is procured, and a letter in the most blundering style of what is a most difficult art is despatched to the Member, who is at once conjured to see Ministers on the subject, whicb, in nine cases out of ten, concerns no one but tho writer, and which in almost every case is a request for some solid advantage to tho applicant. I am induced to make these remarks from reading a part of the report of tjie meeting of the Ak.iroa and Wainui Eoad Du.ud in 3 r our last issue, in which it is proposed to write to Mr Montgomery a letter "giving him full particulars of the steps taken by the Board in taking some land for a ruad in French Farm," and he is further to bo instructed to beard the Minister of Public Works in the privacy of his

office, and drnflf .some official reason out of him in connection with the matter. The reason is not far to seek; some one has blundered, and no doubt the Board has all the possible information procurable on the subject in their pigeon-holes, procured through the proper channel, viz., the Dep rtment under which the matter comes. Little doubt the Board slill feela the castigation in Mr Knight's letter on tbo particular subject referred to, and returns to the charge again under the wing of the Member for the district, but 1 imagine Mr Montgomery is too jistute a politician to be made a eatspaw of by the Board. The above is for from a solitary ense, indeed it is repeated ad nauseam by every Committee, Vestry, Board, and Council in the district. No sooner are members at their wits'end -which is not going- a p-pnt length—how to-communicate some trifling matter to some particular Department of a too paternal Government, than it is duly proposed and seconded that Mr Montgomery l>e written lo on the subject. The unhappy Member for the district is then doomed to be sent all over the Govern- , mt-iit Buildings on his ernnid. to be informed Ministers are in Cabinet. Secretaries are in attendance on Ministers, and, at last glad to get the ear of an Undersecretary, he is informed th <t the matter will have the attention of the Government. Wlmt loss of dignity, time, and temper me involved in this imorn* but. the Member himself can tell. The who'e bn position in Mr Montgomery's ease is simply put up with by the couitesy which is born of Kood manners and the business hnbits ■of a gHTitleiiuu!, feelings whn-li the cruel imposers of the iriitating bunions cannot understand.

It i.s really time that the common sense ot the district cuino to Mr Montgomery's relief and insisted on Bumble conducting his wretched correspondence himself when lie hns occasion in future to address the Secretary for the Village Pump Department, or the Minister whose portfolio is concerned with the registration of Sparrow Clubs as bodies corporate. In this way the proper functions of a member can be utilised, his time economised, and himself enabled to give to all what the noisy few at present try to monopolise. It is only a waste of power to pet a steam-engine to drive a sewing machine or send a man on a boy's errand. Pray let us always know, as far as you are aware, whenever Mr Montgomery is written to. Statistics of human folly are always interesting.—l am, etc., ELECTOR.