CITY BASE LINE.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2618, 8 July 1871, Page 2

CITY BASE LINE.

Tj the Editor. Sir, —Your correspondent “ Pro Bono Publico,” following the example given him by the Mayor, pretends to enlighten the public as to my motives in addressing the City Council on the above subject—a pretty sure sign that the views exp eased by me. are unassailable except in the way of spiteful personal misrepreseutatiors. Tour readers will see that whether my motives are or are not what they are represented to be, has nothing whatever to do with the question. Still I may trespa's as far on your space as to state the reason why I addressed the City Council on the subject, was simply because it is a matter which I am fully acquainted with, and therefore felt it my duty to address them. I claim no credit for “philanthropy ” —at the same time I have the right to demand something else than abuse at the hands of public functionaries. Had I not been personally attacked by Mr Jfish, op h%q I received common courtesy at the hands of the Council, I would not probably have troubled you on the subject. It is a subject which “Pro Bono Publico” evidently knows nothing about, and one which neither the Council nor the public, apart from surveyors, can very well form an opinion upon. Had the City Council adopted my suggestion to obtain the opinion of the Chief Surveyor —the most competent and most unbiassed authority on the subject—the public then would have had something to guide them. Your correspondent makes only one statement as to the benefit of this base line. He says —“ thereby putting every owner in front of whose property the kerbing has been laid in a position with very little trouble to fix not only the level of bis own property, but also give them the building level of such property.” Now even the City Surveyor will agree with me when I say that this base line has nothing whatever to do with the levels of property or of kerbing, which shows how much ‘ ‘ Pro Bono Publico ” knows about w'hat he writes ; and as I have never once given any owner of property his levels, much less charged for them—and more, never intend to meddle with what has always been a “ monopoly” of the City Surveyor’s—all “ Pro Bono Publico’s” fine analyses of my motives become simply imaginary. Let “P. B. P.” be manly enough, when next he wishes to attack any one’s private business or character, to do so openly. It is an unspeakably mean thing to do so under the cover of a nom de plume, and it will in future be met by me with the silent contempt which it deserves. Yours, &c,, Robert Gillies. Dunedin, July 4.