RAILWAY, ETC.

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 390, 11 January 1879, Page 2

RAILWAY, ETC.

(To the Editor of the Patea Mail.) Sir, —In consequence of my absence from home, I have boon unable to correct an error made by your “ Own” correspondent about what I said at the Railway Meeting held hero on the 31st ultimo. I did not, as he reported, say that it would bo better for us to wait two years now, and to have the line through Waverley, than to have it completed at once in another direction. What I said was that I had been told in Carlyle that the agitation some time ago in Waverley had been the cause of the railway being delayed two years, and that, even supposing it had been so, it was better for us to have waited for two years and got the railway close to Waverley, than to have got it at once in another direction (i.e. down by the sand hills). I said this while speaking, advocating agitation about the railway. If he had correctly reported me, he would also have said that I suggested that, although the meeting might with propriety resolve that Government should be requested to take the line as near Waverley as possible, it would bo improper to indicate any particular line, as that would be a question to be decided by a competent Engineer. He has either been misinformed, or must have drawn upon his imagination about the action of the Road Board in appointing a Valuer. One gentleman tendered, and the Board for valid reasons, declined unanimously to accept his tender, and so far from the gentleman who has been appointed requiring to be “persuaded into the office by the Chairman,” or the “ Board going out of their way to press a non-tenderer to take the office,” he was quite willing to accept. I cannot see that the unsuccessful tenderer had any cause of complaint against the Board, as he was aware that they did not bind themselves to accept the lowest or any tender—the lowest tender might be too high, or they might not consider the tenderer competent to do the work satisfactorily. Nor did the Board “ show a want of courtesy in not refusing his tender in the usual way,” as a resolution was passed declining it. The report of the proceedings of the Board was not sent last month to the Mail, on account of press of private business causing it to escape my memory, but if the unsuccessful tenderer had been so “ anxiously waiting for the result,” he saw me quite often enough in Waverley to have enquired who had been appointed. I do not think it is usual to give unsuccessful tenderers formal notice that their tenders have been declined. GEO. 8. BRIDGE.