POWER BOARD S PUZZLE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4653, 25 January 1924, Page 3

POWER BOARD S PUZZLE

MANAGING SECRETARYSHIP.

NINETY APPLICATIONS.

For the position of managing secretary, at a salary of £7OO a year, the Wanganui-Rankitikei Power Board received no less than ninety applications. A sub-committee did the .spade work by defining the number to reasonable proportions, but there was a good deal of discussion left for the meeting of the Board at Marton before a final decision was reached. -.me applicant sent along a photograph, and a Board member on examining it said, “He looks well.” “We are not picking a man on his looks,” said another member. The next application was accompanied by a sheaf of testimonials in language so flowery that the Board was forced to the opinion that the collective intellectual standard in the township where the applicant lived was extraordinarily high, cr else th-3 poetical touch had been given by one pen before the missives were signed. Short, but straight to the point, was a testimonial that came in support of another candidate, and it road : “If you have five hundred applications your task is simple. Just appoint Mr .’’ appoint Mr JJ.” “One thing that puts me off that man is that he writes on both sides of the paper,” said one of the Board members when a further application was presented.

“Economy, perhaps,” suggested a colleague. “It would be a national calamity for us to part with Mr ” began another testimonial, and the writer will no doubt be gratified to learn they are to be spared that disaster. The eternal feminine crept into a further application. “I don’t want to leave here,” the writer said, “but my wife wants a change.” “I am very energetic, and have four children,” narrated another aspirant.

The Board, in appreciation of the distinction that was really intended between business and domestic affairs, smiled and passed on. “Previous local body experience,” added the next applicant. It was stated that the experience had been as a member of the Wanganui Borough Council. Finally the Board made a choice — Mr P. H. Smith, town clerk at Masterton and secretary of the Wairarana Power Board, who had all the qualifications that were necessary.