THE WATERWORKS EXTENSION INQUIRY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5292, 12 March 1878, Page 3

THE WATERWORKS EXTENSION INQUIRY.

”fQ THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. ;SiE—l will be greatly obliged if you will give insertion to a reply to a letter from Councillor Fisher which has been printed with the proceedings of the Water Works Extension Committee. It cannot be considered as a matter merely affecting Councillor Fisher and mysdf, but it has, Tthink, some little interest to both . shorthand writers and witnesses. I have to trouble you because the committee, by . a majority of one, declined to allow me to, reply by letter addressed to them. Councillor Fisher’s letter is very very long. He says it is not tinged with personal; feeling, but I fancy it abounds with ill-feeling and a desire to abuse, and I will' say why it is hot worse. He has failed in several attempts to get attacks on me published in the Press, and finding that scurrilous letters would not be printed, he has attempted to eschew , evil speaking. He denies that he made a cowardly and unprovoked attack on me, but all who were present at the meeting I think must know that he did. He writes :“I might have claimed that the chairman should insist upon, the observance of that respect which was due ;to a member :of the committee.” Certainly. However, he tried to do this at another meeting of the committee, for when I laughed at some of the, extraordinary nonsense he uttered, : he claimed the protection of the chair. Bather unfair, for/aspl- had, to listen to his scolding me, he might have allowed me a little laugh. Strangely enough, the chairman, who. was'reading a. document, went on reading, and-Councillor Fisher was not “protected.’* 5 ‘ ' I. am sorry to contradict Councillor Fisher; but I must repeat that 1,, examined a few alterations only, and they certainly were not at all trivial.' He says the' report was too literal Of course it' must be literal. He is unfortunate , in: the -instances of the alterations which he gives. Questions 171 and 172 are certainly hot mere repetitions ; and the story about the ! noise of carts is nonsense. Questions 292 and 293 should not have been altered. They did not require “dressing.” In transcribing, I wrote “commercial” instead of “business” morality. An accidental improvement. I am positive I did.uot omit any part of questions read by Councillor Fisher ; but as to those he had written, but did not read, I knew nothing. Then he complains that he .is made to say “Up not you think,” when he alleges he said, “Do you not think.” The fact is he said, “ Don't you think.” He is doubly unfortunate in referring to question 291 and his striking out of the words “Were you jointly interested?” Surely he can see the difference there may ,be between persons being “jointly interested” in land, and being “ joint proprietors.” May they not be joint tenants ? He complains of the insertion of the words “ I took the certificate back with me ” in No. 170. It is certainly astonishing that Councillor Fisher should have forgotten whispering across the table to me a request to “take” those identical words, which appeared, very like a repetition; but he evidently thought he had a reason for wishing them to be taken down. Councillor Fisher freely published a statement that Councillor Logan had made alterations similar to his own. I denied this, and said that Councillor Logan never wrote one word in the manuscript. “Oh,” says Councillor Fisher, “hewrotetwowordsin the margin of some evidence with black lead pencil, and they have disappeared.” I have examined the evidence carefully, and I and a friend wasted not a little time in looking with a magnifying glass for these two words, or for a trace of them, but without success. It is a pity Councillor Fisher did not say what the words were. He denies that he asked me not to say anything about his addition on a page of Councillor Macdonald’s evidence. I wish I could think I was mistaken. There is no doubt at all about it. He pressed me several times not to say anything about the addition. 'Counoillur Fisher asserts that a printed copy of the evidence was sent to him with a request that he would read and revise it. That is not the fact. There was a red ink note on it, stating that it had to be read, revised, and corrected before being printed, and he knows well enough that this was to show that it had not been finally revised by the printer; indeed, some had not been even read. Fressmen will be glad to bear that Coun- - cillor Fisher has at length found out the necessity for “stripping” his language of “verbiage,” and for not using three words where two would do. His letter does not indicate much success in the art of condensation, so far. He has made out the best ease he could for himself, after having had plenty of time to consider every point, but he has sadly failed in justifying himself, and if I chose to write as long, a letter as his, I could answer every paragraph he has written, and show the fallacies which underlie his so-called defence, from beginning to end.—l am, &c., Chas. M. Ceombie, Shorthand Writer. Wellington, March 11.