THEY FELL WITH A HARD BUMP!

NZ Truth, Issue 1189, 13 September 1928, Page 5

THEY FELL WITH A HARD BUMP!

Tramways Committee Unburdens Itself of Remarkable Confession In Gunter Affair

HISCffiQUEFORREmRTO^m

- • . • / . (From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Auckland Representative.) The cat is at Jast out of the bag. The Auckland City Council has sWallojwed hard, put on as good ajace as possible and publicly admitted that it fell with a bump for Robert William Gunter, prince of impostors and doyen of bluffers, the man who was engaged to prepare an expert report on the city- s traffic muddle. s Happily for the Council and its dignity, Gunter happened to know his onions and gave value for the cheque for £125, which Cr. J. A. C. Allum was compelled to admit had been paid to him for services rendered. , '

AND . now .that all the. shouting Is over and the tramways committee ■'■•■■■.-•■'.-•has- unburdened itself of its remarkable confession of gullibility, the ratepayers of the city may well, ask thSinseiv.es what guarantees they have thai" some other Impostor, such as Gunter, will not walk, into the cdnfldenbe of the civic administrators and eventually give cause for much Heartburning.. ' '■:'■.!! .-.■ ■ '■■:.'. ■' : : -.( ■:,'.': There are no. guarantees from the Council^ whatever^. The only safeguard against Incurring publio ridicule, such as their assoKjiatlon with ;- Gunter attracted to>-*h>m, is the old truth: "Once bitteai twice shy." ■ ■!%}; is safe; to v.&^'th'at . Cr. Allum (chairman of the tramways committee), at least, twill not be caught nappinjj • a second time, : for if ever a man found himself , m. aJi unenviable and wholly ridioulous position Allufla did when he presented his explanation toefor the full Council and a packed gallery, -with Gunter present It W«s surprising that the dally . papers did not see fit to delve into . the whole question weeks ago and give the publio the truth oft,ho whole business. Tbia would have been too much to,, expeot, being suoh a contentious matter.--: .■■;.:..■■ v":. •■•'■■.■■■■. :.i". ■■■■.■ •'■ it was left, as usual, to . "N.Z. iitith" to sift the facts and give the publio the; position as it really^was— an' 6, ihcidentally, to force the matter Into, the glare of publicity. 'ItV)Ls : true ; that the City Council dispussibn arose as a result of a notice of motion which Cr. Murray tabled a few days before the meeting, m which he called; f p : i*' a full explanation of the whole of the. transaction iwith Gunter. ; But even had Murray sung dumb, the . Council couid hardly have evaded the challenge of "N.Z. Truth," twhich published the full facts m last week's issue .and created a' mild sensation m Auckland: as a result. ' The disclosures published m "Truth" appeared the same day } as the meeting of the Council. The explanation given by Cr. Allum was, In efitebt, a complete endorsement of the facts given m "Truth/ insofar as the committee's dealings with Gunter were concerned. •Jt must have been a bitter pill to AJTum i --whose attitude when approached, ; t>y. ".y^uth" representatives for. information was so , uncompromisingly , hostileT^ylrtually to ha^e tp admit :that i ili!!llll]!l!lllll!!llllllllllllll!lllillll!lllllilllllllllllllilllfflllllllllllll!l!llllllllllllll!!llll

"Truth" hid forestalled him by a matter of twelve hours. , . Following the tabling of Cr. Murray's- notice of motion, the dailies got busy and m one journal Allum was reported as having said: that he was aware of the. himors that were circulating, but ,that 95 per cent, of them were false. He also promised a full explanation, adding that he had ')no thing to be ashamed of." Just how much of the '95 per cent. was false was demonsttated by Allum himself before the Council. "VVhen he had finished -his apologia, .it was clear that the percentage of false rumor was non- , ; existent and that it was all solid fact, Allum freely admitted that Gunter had .been employed to compile the report 1 . . About a year ago, he had presented himself to the tramway manager, claiming to have been ; employed by the London General Company as an engineer, and had probe ctuite satisfactory., Allum added that he was advised by the expert officers that; Gunter was conversant with his subject and had a considerable knowledge of ■ motor transport. "As a matter of fact," remarked ■ Allum, "it should be stated that he did

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make a number of "suggestions which have "been found to be quite useful and sound. . The cost of his services to the department was £125." The chairman of the committee then went on to explain that until Gunter left Auckland the department; had no reason to believe he was otherwise than he appeared to be. ■ "Subsequently, a cablegram was sent to the L.G.0.C., who replied that Gunter had been employed by them, but had also imposed* on theni by means of forged credentials," Allum further asserted. "It must be admitted that a clever criminal has imposed on the . Council, as. he has, unfortunately, imposed on many others, both here and elsewhere." ;-■. Alluni went on to castigate Cr. Murray for adopting his present method of obtaining- the information. The material facts, Xllum maintained, had, he believed, long been known to most — if not all— councillors, as

they had been to, many members of the public, indudihg the representatives of. the local bodies who appeared before the recent transport commission. None of the local bodies, m spite of their critiC i sm O f the Council and its transport administration, had tried to make any capital out of the incident, It had been left to one of their own members to "attempt to injure the Council m the eyea of the public." "One cannot help wondering," Allum concluded, "w ha t motive inspired Cr. Murray. : : "It cannot be that he thinks there is ah/ possibility of getting the money back or of doing anything .that will m any way assist the Council or the public generally. "it appears to • be a case of taking the opportunity to make personal capital out of an unfortunate; incident .. .jand all fair-minded people will value his action accordingly.' 1 '•'■' - And .. savina Alluiri loakina But indiscriminate mudrslingihg af Murray did not lessen the; fact that Allum and his transport officers had been badly bluffed by Gunter, even though he delivered the bacon, ; Murray had a perfect; right— not only as a councillor, but: as a citizen— to demand a full explanation.

[iHiiiHMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiimiiiiiimiiiminiiimiiiimimimimiiiii Allum's thrusts at him on the ecore of "making capital out of an unfortunate incident" were so, much eyewash and , camouflage which deceived nobody. The anxiety of Mayor Baildon to draw the curtain across the embarrassing panorama of the council — and particulai-ly the transport chairman — cutting his ridiculous capers across the Gunter landscape, was decidedly ill-timed and out of place. No sooner had Allum delivered his explanation — and he got m very early m the debate — than the mayor moved that the explanation foe accepted and that the matter ibe closed. But the Council was net to be stampeded. In the debate which followed, several councillors demanded to know why 'the.. trans* . action had been hidden from the Council. ; Murray, who usually plays a lone' hand, received support from several quarters— and, incidentally, a good deal of opposition — but if one thing

was made clear,, it was the necessity for all important matters, especially where expenditure of public money is involved, to be dealt with by the whole j Council and not left to small committees. ■ ■'•'.• ■The argument of one speaker that some of the best work was done by committees may be all very well when considered from the angle of routine, but it is all wrong when it comes to such important matters as the pre^paration of costly reports. ' No expenditure, on principle, should be authorized and executed by any committee, but by the whole Council. This has been demonstrated m the Guntep affair. The bulk of the councillors' were m ignorance of the transactions with the traffic expert, notwithstanding: the mayor's assurance, that the minute-book of the committee records the fact of Gunter's appointment to prepare the report. If public business m Auckland is to be conducted on these lines and councillors are to be kept m ignorance of. what is going on, then the sooner the present civic administration is swept out arid the control of the city's affairs handed over to a small-commit-tee of civic administrators, the better. , The ratepayers are not satisfied with the present state of affairs, ; There is far too much committee business— too much business settled and dealt with "under the •hat." The Council must realize that each member is a servant of the public, even though their services carry no remuneration, and it, is not desirable that they should forget this- fact. The Gunter affair is little short of a civic scandal— not because Gunter is an impostor, but because the whole of the facts were concealed, until the Council was forced into the open. A wholesale clean-up of the civic administration is urgently needed. . The public has a right to know what is going on, but when their own representatives m office are ignorant ; of important transactions— as m Gunter's^ case— it is high time the ratepayers squealed. • They are squealing— and the ampll-' fled echo of that squeal may ring -with dinning effect m the ears of many of the civic big-wigs who at .present adorn the Council' chamber,., -vyrhen. the returning? officer puts up the. numbers next April] ..'. • : .