New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1877.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5057, 8 June 1877, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1877.

The report of the committee of the City Council, re their officials, has been referred to a committee of the whole Council, and it is hoped that good results will come of this course. Those results v>ill be best attained by going much further than the report alluded to, and by making preparations for a radical change and reform amongst the officials. The report of the committee recommended, as will be seen, that the services of the City Engineer and the Wharfinger should be dispensed with, (unless the latter resigned his connection with the firm of Plimmer, Reeves and Co.), and that applications should be invited for the office of City Engineer at a salary of £SOO per annum. It was also recommended that an assistant should be allowed to the City Engineer, at a salary of £350 per annum. This report, it is pretty well understood, meant in effect that Mr. Climie should be appointed City Engineer, and that Mr. Marchant should be offered the post of his assistant, whilst Mr. Reeves should be got rid of altogether. At the time the subject matter of the report Wets made public we took leave to differ very decidedly from it. And we see no reason to alter our mind in that respect. That it would be better for the city if Mr. Marchant did not remain as Engineer was an obvious fact on which the New Zealand Times has frequently insisted; but that Mr. Marchant was not the only Corporation official whose services could be dispensed with with advantage to the municipality is a fact on J which we have been no less urgent. Let us ask the committee if, when they expressed an opinion that the whole of the direction of the Corporation business should emanate from the Town Clerk's office, he being recognised as the chief official of the Corporation, as required by the Municipal Corporations Act, they were of opinion that the present Town Clerk, very worthy gentleman as he is, is fitted for the office, or did they think that so important an office as they very properly would make the Town Clerk's should be conferred upon Mr. HESTER without inviting competition in the open market at such a salary as the city of Wellington should pay, a salary the payment of which would really be economical as tending to a large saving in other directions? In a word, what the Council want to do, and what they should do if they have the courage of their opinions, is this: Notice of dispensation with their services should be given to Mr. Hester and Marchant, and applications for the offices of Town Clerk and Engineer, at salaries sufficient to secure the services of the most competent men, should be invited throughout tho colonies. In the case of the former gentleman, we are not disinclined to agree with Mr. Cleland, —who occasionally takes a lucjd ol yiew of a question,—that it Town Clerk" were m*7„, the city i£ tlle ~. , cte a solicitor. Wi» have nothing to say ,i.,„;„.,t v.i.. J ... Solicitor, or against the cost of his services to the Corporation. Under the existing system, tho cost of the services of any other legal gentleman would be most likely precisely the same as the cost of the services of Mr. Traveks ; but, as a matter of fact, if the whole expenditure of the Council in legal matters be taken into account, it will be found that, added to the present Town Clerk's salary, it would make the pay of that office a very handsome one, and one that should secure the services of a wellqualified member of the legal profession as Town Clerk. This, however, is but a side issue. The real point is that the recommendation of the committee re the Town Clerk is a proper one, and that in order to the proper carrying out of such recommendation the office of Town Clerk is one that should be taken into consideration in reorganising the municipal appointments quite as much as any other. The objection to Mr. Reeves acting as Wharfinger, and at the same

time retaining an interest, even though a professedly inactive one, in a mercantile firm, i 3 a good and proper one; but Mr. Reeves has just ground of complaint that the Council having, at the time of his appointment, permitted him to retain such an interest, and having since exonerated him from charges brought against him in consequence partly of his connection with PiIMMEK, REEVES AND Co., should now discover that to be very wrong which they have all along insisted was perfectly right. It is just as well, perhaps, that the whole of the questions involved have been relegated for decision to a committee of tho entire Council; for, in the first place, they will be best discussed in committee, and in the next place the decision arrived at will be practically that at which the Council must ultimately arive, so that a definite decision one way or tho other must be arrived at; and tho ratepayers will know if the Council are prepared to do their duty without fear, favor, or affection.