COUNTY COUNCIL AND ROAD. BOARDS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 549, 18 October 1881, Page 2

COUNTY COUNCIL AND ROAD. BOARDS.

To the Editor,

Sir—For a long time I have not read anything in your paper so amusing as the report of the meeting re Road Board members sitting in judgment on the County Council, which appeared in your issue of tho 14th inst. With all respect to the " most potent, grave, and reverend signors " composing the meeting, I was irresistably reminded of the historical three tailors, said to havo resided in Tooley street. Alas !if these be samples of our public men, how appropriate seems the cynic's sneers as to the small modicum of wisdom requisite to govern a world.

To begin at the beginning, how equisite are th 0..0 '■ exlru-t. from the minutes " of the Pigeon P>ay Road Board. "After some convcisition as to the advisibility of doing away with tho County Council . . .., " This Board having, at its last ordinary' meeting had under consideration the advisibility of abolishing the County Council . . ." Thanks, gentlemen of ths Pigeon B_y Board. Since you are such good hands at "abolishing" and "doing away " with what docs not meet your approval, could you not try your hands a little further afield? What say you to ''abolishing" the General As-j s mbly. the House of Lords, tho Irish Land League, the Eastern Quc.-tion, taxcollectors, and tailors'bills? What a pity j such energetic reformers should be thrown

away on an unsympathising generation, and had not lived and achieved power in the days of slavery, corn laws, rotten boroughs, press-gangs, hair powder, and such enormities as required any amount of " abolishing." To the grandiloquent abolition proclamation of Pigeon Bay came replies from tho potentates of other districts. Those from Akaroa and Wainui and Little l.iver show gleams o£ a cold matter-of-f act common sense which might have bad the effect of damping the ardor of I .-reori Bay and would have extinguished tho efforts of any but tho most sanguine. The former body's opinion is, that the question is " a matter lor Legislation," while the latter is democratic enough to remember that the general public, though not privileged to sit on Road Boards, are still God's creation, and that a question affecting their interests should be left to the ratepayers to decide." But it the enthu>iasm of Pigeon Bay was liable to bo damped by such cold matter-of-fact replies, as these, how it must hav_ wanned up again under the generous cordialities of Okain's Bay. In tho body of the letter that Board asserts that " wo are only too glad your Board has made a move in that direction, and we will .... bear a share of any expense that may be incurred." How generous I There are men who would shed tho last drop of their (brother's) blood, and there are boards always willing to spend the funds entrusted to them in law expenses, travelling expenses, deputations, etc., in fact in anything except making roads.

The essence of a lady's letter is said to lie in the postscript, and to this letter from the Okain's Board is appended a postscript in which the true feelings of the writer juts out untr.istakeably. Here is a portion of this denunciation, and tho only wonder is that the Council have survived it :—"lt is tne expressed opinion of every one of tho members of this Board, and also of most of the ratepayers in this district, that tiie County Council is simply a huge sioindle . • W. Moore by D. Wright, "stone throwing is generally held to be unadvisable to be practised by people living in glass houses, but oh ! Mr Moore by D. Wright," are jou not inhabiting tho most transparent of Crystal Palaces, and attempting to cast tbe hugost of slanders? To drop metaphor, does not the offensiva word '-swindle" come with a peculiarly bad grace from a body whose accounts havo been hung up for more than six months, wanting the Auditor's certificate, a body at present " under stoppages," like an uncertificated insolvent, and who could not now appear in a Court of Law without the danger of being non suited ?

But sir, knowing how limited your space is, I must draw these remarks to a conclusion. I have not reached tho serious side of the question yet, and it surely possesses a serious side, but I can't help it, When tho comic countryman comes in, I must laugh, even though I know the heroine is languishing in the dungeons of the wicked count. On some future occasions I may trouble you with a few more remarks on tho mater. —Yours otc, OBSMLIVE.t. Erewhon, Oct. 15,1881.