Wellington Reclamation Contract.

Feilding Star, Volume IV, Issue 40, 6 September 1883, Page 3

Wellington Reclamation Contract.

SERTOTTS COMPLICATION, • (PEB. UNITED PRESS A3SOCIA.TIO.S-.) Wellington, This Day. A special meeting of the City ' ouncil was heid yesterda}' to consider a complication winch has arisen in reference to Mr McGrath's reclamation contract. M r M'cGrath some months bac'-c went bankrupt, and the Council decided to take action against the sureties for the amount of- their bond, £5000. ' The sureties were Messrs Boberts and MeNaught of Canterbury. Under the contract, the Corporation are required, in the event of the contractor's bankruptcy, to give him written notice which of two specified courses they elect to adopt. On Mr McGrath becoming insolvent notice was duly drafted by the City Solicitor and copied by the City Treasurer. Before it was transmitted to^the contractor one of its paragraps was altered so as to give it general instead ofnispecific application. The consequence ,was that the notice failed to comply with the requirements of the contract, and the contractor's sureties have set up as their defence, that notice such as the contract requires was not given to Mr MeG-rath, and they therefore dispute all liability. It is feared, too, that this alleged flaw in the proceeding may also invalidate the Corporation's claim to the plant, etc. If fhis view is sustained the result threatens to be a loss to the city of some £8000. ihe alterations in the notice were made in handwriting of the Mayor In reply to the Solicitor, the Mayor wrote that the alterations were maJe by the direction of the Council at a meeting in IVlav, and against his advice. .-> resolution was carried that the Mayor did alter the notice after the passing of a resolution on the 29th of May. There is great excitement.