BOROUGH AFFAIRS.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 226, 25 March 1895, Page 2

BOROUGH AFFAIRS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE 9TAR. Sir,— lt is much against my wish to enter in print, but a perusal of your article ou Borough Affairs, appearing in your issue of tha 22nd instant, demands from me, I think, some notice. It is quite true, as your article alleges, that a resolution was passed at the last meeting of the Borough Council directing the Mayor to take the necessary steps to raise a loan for the purpose of erecting Municipal Chambers. Your article, after quoting as above, goes on to say that the ratepayers have heard nothing more of it since, and are, therefore, in absolute ignorance of what has been done or is intended to be done. Now, sir, I do not conceive it to be my duty to go from street corner to street corner and proclaim what the Council is doing, but I do conceive it to be the duty of any newspaper which purports to be a correct chronicler of events to make the public aware of what matters of importance are going on in the district wherein such newspaper circulates. Had the writer of your leader on Borough Affairs not been either wilfully or lamentably I iguorant of the matter upon which he i writes he would have informed your ' readers that a sub-Committee of the . Council had been appointed to deal with the question of the Municipal Chambers, and that the necessary steps were being taken with a view of taking a poll of the ratepayers in connection therewith. Again, had the writer of the article desired to deal fairly with myself and tho Council and inform the ratepayers of the position of matters he could have done so without trouble, because it was only so recently as Tuesday last that the matter was very fully discussed between Mr Curtis (one of the proprietors of the Star) and myself, and I then detailed to him exactly what had been done, and what was then being done in the matter, and why the Council conld not fall in with the proposition to erect the buildings in the { Square. In the face of my conversation with Mr Curtis and the information I then imparted to him, I cannot quite understand the object of yesterday's leader. The assertion in your leader, that the erection of buildings in Manchester Square under certain conditions offered by the Corporation would cost a merely nominal sum, and that the erection of the buildings at the corner of Stafford street and Kimboltonroad 4 would entail an increased rate, is simply nonsense. Again, the Council with the exception of one member is unanimous in the desire to erect the buildings on the Stafford street site. At the proper time a public meeting will (as provided by the Act) be called to discuss the matter of the Municipal Chambers, and, in the meantime, I would suggest that you, sir, should before writing further make yourself fully conversant with the true position of affairs, andrefrain from writing in a strait) that appears to me deliberately calculated to mislead. Haying now, I think, shown the ratepayers that the matter is receiving every attention at the hands of the Council, and pending the calling of the meeting referred to, I must decline to discuss the matter further in your columns. My only object now in writing is to show the ratepayers, as you, I think, could have done had you so chosen, that their interests are not being neglected. I am, etc., W. A. Sandilands, Mayor* Feildiug, March 23rd, 1895.