New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 1877.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 4930, 10 January 1877, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 1877.

It would be impossible to deny the actualfacts of the public meeting held last night regarding the erection of a Town Hall. It°was a crowded, earnest, and representative assemblage. That no cut and dried resolutions were ready for presentation, that its promoters had no plan of organisation amongst themselves, make its result all the more forcible. The expression of opinion was simply unanimous against building the proposed Town' Hall, and must be taken therefore -not as one worked up.and carefully fomented, but as having all the weight of spontaneity from a very full attendance of citizens vitally interested in the question at issue. It is to be hoped that the'City Council will not be disregardful of the vote passed by the citizens. That vote came from a meeting called by the Mayor on requisition from the ratepayers. Every opportunity for fairly discussing the question before the meeting was afforded, and that the speeches were all in one way-is not the fault of those who formed the vast majority of those present, for more than once an evident desire was evinced that some at least of those who differed from the plain sentiments of the meeting should advance an argument in favor of their views. But the Townhallers, if the expression be permissible, were silent. They may have possibly thought, in one conspicuous instance at least, that it would not be well if the whole city were made acquainted in the morning with the fact that they had publicly run counter to the desires of the ratepayers. This may be deemed good policy. To most people it will simply seem the caution that proceeds from the worst description of cowardice. The meeting was not a prejudiced one, and it is, not too much to say that if any gentleman had fairly refuted the arguments advanced by the speakers, he might have counted upon a vote in favor of the erection of a Town Hall, But those gentlemen present who desire to see £IO,OOO spent upon a Town Hall had not the courage of their convictions last night; and it is just as well to warn them that it will be no use for them to combat the resolutions of the meeting now, for to do so will be to insult the meeting, fairly representative of the citizens, which betrayed every possible disposition to hear arguments on each side. It is as well that this matter should be thus plainly stated, for it is right to tell those who advocate the building of a Town Hall, that last night an orderly and large meeting of ratepayers was willing to be convinced by them, and that if they feared public opinion too much to endeavor to convince that meeting, but little attention will be paid to anything they may say subsequently. They had a fair and impartial tribunal to go before. They declined to present themselves before that tribunal, and they must not now navil at its decrees. We write without partiality of any kind. We should be as glad as any to be made understand that a Town Hall such as is proposed is necessary, and should be erected; but we must decline to take ex parte statements on the subject from persons afraid to submit their views to the fair test of an orderly and well regulated public meeting of those most competent and best entitled to pronounce upon the point in dispute. The meeting in its initiatory proceedings was not, as will be seen, the result of any preparation ; and on this account the manner in which it subsequently settled itself to business, should be regarded as all the more valuable by those whose clear duty it is not to rashly disregard the expression of public opinion conveyed in the resolutions arrived at.