TELEGRAMS TO THE MAYOR.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 103, 19 August 1876, Page 2

TELEGRAMS TO THE MAYOR.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE EVENING MAIL. Snt, —As you have done me the honor in your leading article of yesterday's issue to favor me with your views as to the manner in which the duties appertaining to the office of Mayor should be discharged, the least that can possibly be expected from me is an acknowledgment with thanks. I have also to thank you for the undeniable courtesy and good taste which characterises your remarks, and there is only one point on which I desire to set you right. It is as to the insinuation that at last Council meeting I made some "lame excuse" for a dereliction of duty as a public servant in not supplying the Mail with certain information. What I stated was, that all the telegrams which had been published in the Times had been received by me after the publication of The Mail each day they severally caaie to hand, and I therefore forwarded them to the Times, as the paper first appearing, fully supposing that The Mail would understand that it could reprint them as public documents equally at its disposal. Had the case been reversed, they would have been sent first to you, leaving the Times to copy, my rule being to send such documents for publication to the paper first appearing. You, sir, can scarcely plead that you needed any special intimation to that effect, as you have had, and acted upon, my authority in another capacity—that of Officer Commanding the District—to reproduce orders appearing in the Times, if published first in that paper. Iu conclusion, let me say that I should not have troubled you with this letter, had you seen fit in your report of the last Council meeting to have given the remarks made by me on laying the telegrams in question before the Council.—l am, &c., Willtam J. Steward, Mayor.

[We fail to see the anology of the comparison instituted. In the one case, we received special authority officially from the Commanding Officer for the extraction of the advertisements from the Times; in the other—the publication of public telegrams—no such course was taken by his Worship in his official capacity, the very omission of which we complain.—Ed. E.M.]