Cromwell Argus AND NORTHERN GOLD-FIELDS GAZETTE. TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1872.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 145, 20 August 1872, Page 4

Cromwell Argus AND NORTHERN GOLD-FIELDS GAZETTE. TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1872.

| The new Town Council have lost no ti | in getting to work, —have made no del in bringing themselves to the considerafl of the many subjects which are laid oiijj claim their attention during the y] Following the fashion of higher admij trative bodies, the Mayor, in the shap^ an address to the Council at its first m ing, suggested a variety of subjects for a sideration at an early date. To this ''Mam address," subjects from all quarters« imported : many of them with old famij faces, dressed in new garbs to furnish a with a semblance of freshness ; and ffl more culled from the e.ection speec which formed so prominent a character! ! of our latest municipal election excitemi And the Council, as we have said,h not delayed to consider these suggestii —or the more important of them, at le In the matter of Water Supply, action | already been taken : the Governmenth been requested, with success, to.al! I their Engineer to report upon the suhj ; and probably before our next issue,] report will have been furnished. 1 promptitude on the part of the Council I commendable. Acting upon their sti ; as the only public body in the district,! ; Council have framed a petition for sig ! ture'asking our member iu the Pjjovil j Council, Mr Hickey, to resign. Coj j are to 1 e forwarded to the different j j tions of the district, and there can b^ I question that, if Mr Hickey is to be] : Huenced by the request of a majority of constituents, his resignation will shoj I he in the hands of the Superintend 'Among the subjects already moved in the Council is that of the formation q j track to Quartz Reef Point, i'he advj bility of a track as the means of coinnii cation is questionable. Granted a suca ful future for Bendigo,—in which we fin believe.-—a road up the east bank of; ! Clutha will become a necessity : a brid therefore, across the narrow neck of! Clutha at li Deadman'a Point" seems more feasible project. In the nie;mtij j the cost of a horse track, as is prop! j maybe somewhat less than that of a hi'idj j but when the exigencies of increased tw demand ars extension of the width ok \ \ the contrary will be found to be the a , And no comparison as to facilities of jo Ineying can be instituted between wl j would be afforded bv a bridge and f ifectly level road on the one hand, and ! rough, rocky, and dangerous hillside c ! ting on the other. We incline to t opinion that the cost of constructing ! bridge sufficient to meet present requi j meuts would not greatly exceed the aoiol | voted for the track (£7OO worth of lam 'and should much like to see a report m jthe District Engineer on the snl>je I Many other matters of importance are Jthe programme of suggestions, but; ; these, —and of those likely to come up future meetings,—we have not space ; treat at this time Suffice it to say, t! | we hope the activity and disposition business shown by the Council will 1 flag in any appreciable degree as the me ii»ers become more settled and fatnilittj lheir seats. By this Council, morel been promised than by any preceding flj and therefore of it more will be expectj For the most part, things have as J worked smoothly. But indications hi I not been wanting of a jarring tendeMfl some of the joints , perhaps, however, j | more than is sufficient to show that! joints have their uses, and that they 4 not to be disregarded, or ridden of rough-shod. If from these symptoms] discord there be evolved a carefulness tj the business of the Council shall be cj ducted beneficially for the public inters then the tendencv will not be barren! * sood. f

The stuffing of Electoral Rolls has hitherto been one of the malpractices of unprincipled , aspirants for.politicalhonours-whieh-u|j to the present-time have not reared their heads in this Colony.to such* an e*tent as .to.call for much notice. It would seem, however, that this Province bids fair to occupy the first placa on the scroll of fame in the Colony for venality in this respect; and that no less a person than His Worship the Mayor of Dunedin—who of all others should surely be a pattern of strict probity and integrity—is entitled to the credit of being the ringleader in what to us appears to be a most barefaced piece of chicanery in connection with the Dunedin Citizens' (Municipal) Roll. Shortly stated, the facts are these :—Mr H. S. Fish, jun., jg lessee of a section (Corporation property) in a remote part of the city. It is a bare piece of ground, without the slightest improvement upon it, and to all appearance is put to no practical use by the lessee. The amount of rates brought in to the Corporation yearly by this section is twenty-one shillings. Yet for this one barren leasehold section, there are no less than seven votes recorded at Municipal elections, the other six high-principled citizens who exercise their electoral prerogative by reason of their interest in it being tenants of the great Fish, who appears to exercise a bewitching influence over the minds of the Dunedin electors ; and these tenants, be it remembered, are nearly all connected in some way or another with

this highminded Mayor,—one being his brother-in-law, another his foreman, a third A workman in his shop, and so on. Challenged with his abuse of the franchise in this glaring and reprehensible manner, and seeing-, we presume, no loophole of escape, Mr Fish puts a braz°n face on the matter, and with the utmost effrontery tells the electors that " th/i law allows it," and that next year he will cut up this waste piece of ground, if it so please him, into twelve portions, and "snMet" it to as m-inydiffe-

rent electors. We are afraid that the "sub-letting" really exists only in the words ot this honourable man, the chosen of the people. At any rate, the wholo affair bears the ugliest of aspects, and we should say, if the Dunedin electors have any perception of what is rignt and what k wrong, that this piece of double-dealing will assist very much in turning the tide of public favour upon which Mr FrsH has hitherto glided in so pleasant and satisfactory a manner. This is a matter which affects not only Dunedin. Seeing that the "law allows it," what is to prevent anv rttepayer in this Municipality of Cromwell who possesses, we will say by way of illustration, two or three of the unimproved allotments on the Camp-hill terrace, troni "snb-letting" strips of th»m to twenty or thirty different friends before the u«xr, municipal elections, and so swamping the roll with persons who really ought to have no voice whatever in the result of any contest? It is a proceeding alike disgraceful and subversive of all good faith in the exercise of the voter's privilege ; and if the law allows it, all we can say is that the law wants altering, and that the sooner it 11 ) amended as to prevent such men as Mr Fish from practising the underhand "' ' despicable means of gaining their own "■• which have just been exposed, the tetter for the honourable and fair-dealin* members of society who would scorn to debise themselves by soiling their hands with such trickery. We fed strongly on «w subject, and wonder greatly at the equanimity displayed by Dunedin citizens ii the matter, fcr beyond the publication of one or two letters in the Dunedin pipers, I *fi cannot ascertain that any steps are betog taken by them to express their detes-j Mod. of xYtr Fish's conduct.