COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTIONS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1360, 7 December 1872, Page 2

COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTIONS.

: MR. HOOS AT HOEITIKA. ; Mr Hoos addressed a meeting <in the Town Hall, Hokitika, on Thursday evening, and. a vote of confidence in him was passed by <* an overwKelming, majoriiy." We select from the report in the Times his remarks on the following three subjects;— ; TJBTE HUNGEBEOBJ): OONmAOT. Another charge against Hrn ,, and one which was considered a grave : one/ was in relation to the flungerfdrd contract. He would. tell the meeting how that matter had originated. A? committee had been appointed, consisting- of the: County Chairman, Mr Bonar, Mr Button, and himself (Mr Hoos)^ to .= arrange a/ statement upon which to base a request to the General Government to fake over part maintenance of - the Christchurch road. The committee was placed in some difficulty, as the road- had never beehj) completed. There were several mttesbf road which required making near -the Taipo, some portion of road near the Thirty-three-Mile post, and also;nearly* a mile at Rangariri. The rdad was also being continually washed away in places, and altogether the committee found 'themselves unable to make a computation of the cost of maintaining the road. '. Ituwas then suggested, he believed by Mr Bonar, that Mr Hnngerford should : be i askMlto give an idea of what the cost of maintaining the road would be. Mr Hungerf ord was in Hokitika at the .time, and was communicated with by the County, Chairman. At first he (Mr Hungerford) declined, but ultimately, on a promise to Keep his offer secret, jhe' did send in a computation; of the costof i the maintenance of the road. At the same time an estimate -was also-made by -jthe" . County Engineer. When : the report of that committee was brought tip in the County Council, the Chairman incautiously betrayed the figures/set down by Mr Hungerford, and so he was placed at a disadvantage in competing for the actual maintenance of the. road, seeing that he had already given a figure for the guidance of the committee lower than which he could not go. The Council was thus placed in a dilemma, -and a motion was made and carried by the Chairman that Mr Hungerford should be asked to Inake an offer to maintain the road for seven months, so as to tide over until July, 1873. The reason of this was that as in January the Council would be sitting, unless provision were made beforehand for a term going over the six months, which would then commence, there would be one month, that in which the Council would be sitting, without any contract for the maintenance of the road, "and that month the worst in the year in irespect of floods. Accordingly, Mr Hungerford made an offer to maintain the road for the seven months. When the offer was considered in Committee of Council, all the members were willing to accede toitexcept Mr Robinson. The matter was, however, postponed in order to obtain the opinion of the County Engineer. When that opinion was obtained, it was resolved by the Council, on the motion of Mr Ralfe, on the voices, that Mr .Hungerf ord's offer for seven niontbs be accepted. He would mention that the decision was arrived at in Committee of the Council, and that, proceeding regularly^; it was the busines.3 6,f the Chairman to. move, when the Council resumed, that what had been done in Committee should be adopted! The Chairman not having done so^ it became necessary to move the adoption at another meeting of the Council. That was done by Mr Ralfe, and carried, Mr Button, who opposed the motion: then, had all along- admitted that the Council had- committed itself, and had Stated that the Council was bound to do something to repair the wrong the present contractor had suffered. Mr Bonar was willing to abide by. the estimate of the engineer, and though he did not vote in the final decision, he left with. the County Chair-; man his sanction to whatever Mr Lahnian agreed to/ Mr Bonar -was at the: time leaving Hokitika for Christchurch, and he stated that* he would telegraph from the Bealey the state of the road, i That he failed to do, and the inference drawn was that Mr Bonar was satisfied that his observation of the" state of the road, justified the estimate made. When the' matter was finally concluded, and a division was called, he- (Mr Hoos) considered that the question had already been decided in Committee, and any way he was bound to uphold - that decision. He felt that in support of the honor of the County he w.as bound to stand against repudiation; It had .been insinuated that he had received some remuneration from Mr Hungerforcl. To that herwould give the lie direct.- Hia character- was, however, too well known toneed that he should deny so; base a charge. It was well known that: when he once' adopted a course of conduct he adhered to it, and that was because he ' could not bear repudiation. As he would do for himself, so would he do for the County, maintain its honor to the utmost of his power. (Loud applause.) ; IBAMWAY COMPENSATHJK". .Another, matter, which was made a charge against him was the tramway question. That- question -hadxbeeri cated throughout nearly the whole of the last session of the Council. But if hia suggestion of referring .the" matter to arbitration had been adopted, the difficulty . would have been very soon over. Some people said that, under the resolutions, the matter was bound to be settled by the Council, but' if that body could not arrive < at a decision within itaelf, there wag nothing to prevent a referenoe to arbitl*.

tors, the Council adopting the result as its own decision. He was persuaded that the matter would never be settled, except by arbitration or by appeal to the Supreme Court. It had been said that he intended to work into the hands of his supporters, some of whom were tramway shareholders, but that was not the oaso. He was only desirous of acting justly, as between man and man, and he would scorn as much to do an injustice to any individual as he would to a community. He had, he must say, been made much the subjeot of calumny, and in one sense he supposed he ought to feel flattered. Whatever fault For continuation of News y see 4th page.)

happened the blame was thrown upon him. To this he could only repeat what an English King once said when picking up a lady's garter, " Honi soit gui vwl y pense." THE COVNTY FINANCES. The County, ho Tegretted so say, was not, in a financial sense, in the prosperous condition indicated by the County Chairman at his nomination at Greymouth that day. Ho would place before the meeting the actual state of affairs. The whole of the liabilities of the County when ho left tho chair were 1.14,000, and against that amount there were assets arising out of the consolidation of the Canterbury loan, amounting to L 10.300. So that in fact the County was only in debt, L 3700. The present position was this. The County was in debt for borrowed money, LBOOO ; for salaries, provision contracts, and subsidies to hospitals, education, &c, LCOO ; duo to Canterbury, LSIOO ; contracts for works made on deferred payments, maintenance of roads, &c, LI 8, 000. Making in the wholo L 37,000, and the assets still rc.itftined the same, L 10,300. With respect to the L 51,300 due to Canterbury, it had been shown by Mr Beswick's statement in the Provincial Council of Canterbury, that for some time the payments which should have been charged to WestJan d, for interest and sinking fund on the Canterbury loans, had been wrongfully charged by the General Government to Canterbury. Ho, with the County Treasurer, had mentioned that matter to the County Chairman, and had pressed upon him tho necessity of seeing that the interest was paid regularly. Mr Lahman, h swever, had taken no heed, and the result was that this debt of LSIOO had accumulated. The position of the County, therefore, was this, that if its assets were realised it would remain in debt about L 26,700. Since he took office in 1869, up to the present time, L 63,182 had been expended in public works in the County, which was not a small sum for a district like Westland. During his tenure of office L 34.750 had been expended in those works, and during the present Chairman's time L 28,482 had been expended, L 10,482 of which had only been actually Siid, leaving a deficiency of LIB,OOO. ow to pay the L 26,000 was a very difficult question, and was not rendered less difficult by the late action of the General Assembly in reducing. the gold duty and Tendering miners' rights available between Nelson and Westland. He could not but see lhat a serious loss to the revenue of the County must ensue from thoso measures, but more particularly from the reduction of the gold duty.