THE WATERWORKS INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5262, 4 February 1878, Page 3

THE WATERWORKS INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE.

TO THE EDITOB OP THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. : Sib, —Out of the meddlesome fussiness of an individual whose letter you published on Saturday has arisen the charge that I tampered with the evidence before the Waterworks Investigation Committee. This grave charge has of course been turned into a weapon of, attack upon me by persons leagued with that great contracting power whose influence at the Corporation Board I have earnestly striven to break down. It would be the merest affectation to disguise the fact that my attitude in regard to this contracting power has made me many active enemies among its votaries and satellites. That is but natural; but I have always endeavored to steer a straight and honorable course, and I decline to have fastened npon me a charge which, if true, would unfit me any longer to hold a seat in the City Council. f emphatically deny that I altered the evidence of any of the witnesses. To have done so would have been to destroy all confidence in the investigations of the committee and in its report. I revised the questions put by me to some of the witnesses, —a right, I contend, which belonged as much to the members of the committee as to the witnesses themselves,—but I did not “amplify or modify ” them. I will not go into detail, but I desire at the earliest possible moment to refute a charge'which is as baseless as it is malicious. Under these circumstances lam sure you will do me the justice to insert this letter. I am, &c., ' G. Fisher.