THE RECENT MEETING.

Marlborough Express, Volume III, Issue 107, 14 March 1868, Page 4

THE RECENT MEETING.

To the Editor of the Marlborough Express. Sik,—ln pursuing my self-imposed task of reviewing the proceedings at the late meeting, I am particularly desirous of avoiding inviduous distinctions, but the personalities indulged in by both parties, renders it difficult to avoid the appearance of partiality. I cannot proceed however without thanking you for the very clear and truthful report of all the speeches with which you have furnished us. If Mr. Sinclair complained of your breach of etiquette in publishing the proceedings of the select meeting, and of your rendering a distorted report of the same—hecannot do so on this occasion, at all events—if anything, his speeches are. rather improved by the process of printing. I sat very near the table, and I had to pay very strict attention to enable me to understand the meaning of what he called “articulate words,” and to distinguish them from the mere “ humming noise,” especially when backed by the energetic stamping of Mr. Lawrence. Should Mr. S. ever become a “Lord Mayor,” it is to be hoped that he will give Mr. Lawrence the appointment of city jester, after the able and efficient manner in which he proved himself worthy of the “cap and bells.” The present position of the ratepayers in Blenheim is very like being “between two stools, and calls to my mind the old distich ;

<• The Earl of Chatham, with his sword drawn. Is waiting for Sir Kichard Strachan; Sir Kichard Strachan, longing to be at ’em, Is waiting for the Earl of Chatham.” Both parties are convinced (as any man of common sense must be) that a legally qualified Board —call it by what name you please—is absolutely necessary to the well-being and prosperity of the town, yet between the two, we stand waiting ! In judging of the merits of the present (? or late) Board, we are not to be misled by Mr. Sinclair asserting that he “ paid more in one year than all the rest of the ratepayers put together,” though Mr. Gorrie laid great stress on what he (Mr. S.) had paid, because during the time that Mr. Sinclair was a member of that Board, the whole revenue of the town was spent in, making and improving streets, which did, and still do, render Mr. Sinclair’s own property more valuable than it would otherwise be. Nor are. we to infer that they are all men of straw, and he of patrician rank and born gentility, because he sneers at the, occupation of one, or calls another an adventurer or a factotum^—an honest man, though he came here with fivepence in his pocket—to say nothing of five pounds—may be quite as good a member of society as the owner of five thousand acres, “ the cattle on a thousand hills,” or all the sheep in New Zealand.

“ An honest man’s the noblest work of God.” I; do certainly thinly, that the Board, as a body, have acted in some respects unwisely. In disfranchising some of their fellow-townsmen, they appear to me to have acted on the example of their late chairman and present opponent by

standing too much upon the law of the case, rather than the equity. The final vote of the meeting on the 2nd instant was almost, in my opinion, tantamount to a vote of “want of confidence at the same time many of those who voted against the Board openly state their readiness to re-elect them under tiiese circumstances :—I consider the members of the Board are fully justified in appealing to their constituents. The people of Blenheim may be rather slow, and like old Dunedin, rather clannish with regard to “new chums but there is too much good sense and intelligence amongst them to be led away by “ one man,” and too much honesty to allow those who have publicly served them to be personally injured. Let us then as speedily as possible drive out the elements of jarring discord, and give a long and a strong pull altogether. Heaven knows our mutilated country needs all our help; unity of action will cure more evils than the floods can bring. With good roads, clean streets, and renewed prosperity, we may yet sit down and “smoke the calumet of peace.” —I am, sir, yours, &c., _/• Philo Veritas. Blenheim, March 13th, 1867.