The Daily Telegraph WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3091, 25 May 1881, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 1881.

The Municipal Council at its last meeting agreed that the services of Mr J. Stewart should be engaged as "consulting engineer " in reaped to the extension of tbe water supply to the borough. There was little or no discussion about the matter. There seemed to be a sort of understanding that it was better that the municipal engineer should consult somebedy than that the scheme should be adopted without such consultation. .Nothing was said about the remuneration to be paid to Mr Stewart for his advice. The exact sum to be paid may have been agreed upon, but the public, out of whose pockets the money ha 3to come, were not taken into the confidence of councillors. On the other hand, perhaps, no arrangement has been made with Mr Stewart, so that that gentleman may charge whatever he pleases for his professional advice. In either case the ratepayers have aright to complain. It was distinctly understood, on the renijnation of Mr Peppercorne, that his successor would, sooner or later, be called upon to prepare plans for an extended water supply, and it was to that end Mr Marchant'a application for the post met with so much favor. Mr Marchant had been most successful in carrying out the largest water supply scheme at that time known in the colony, and many believed that no better nun could be appointed to the vacant office of engineer. We need not refer again to the events that led to the rejection of Mr Marchant, and to the appointment of Mr Lamb. But we may be permitted to think (hat the former gentleman would have had such confidence in his ability to perform that which, he undertook as to have refused to consult any engineer with rearard to anything that he himself had designed. We do not say that it is not wisa to take outside advice where a large expenditure of public money is involved, for in this extension of the waterworks it is probably due to the ratepayers that they should receive an assurance, "doubly sure," of the excellence of the proposed plan.