PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 966, 3 August 1881, Page 2

PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1881.

Thebe is no telling to what extremity men with perverted minds will go in search of a spurious popularity, or what amount of self-imposed immolation they will undergo, on the altar of a vain, personal conceit. In all communities men are to be found into whose actions one has to look closelv to discover whether their motives be honest or the reverse, for it is the intention with which men act that imparts either a sterling value, or an utter worthlessness to all they do. These remarks are peculiarly applicable to Mr. A. Y. Ross, who called a public meeting on Saturday night last, to “ make the charge public.” As announced in the advertisement, it has a sound of indefiniteness ; but Mr. Ross well defined his charge at the meeting by stating that the Cook County Council had paid away exactly £lOB7 Ils on the Ormond-Gisborne contract, in excess of the value of labor done, and material supplied; and, after two hours, the following resolution—the only one, in fact, bearing on the question before the meeting—was put and carried :—

That this meeting is of opinion the charge made by Mr. Ross seems to be well founded, and warrants an investigation by a Government officer duly appointed. It is not our intention to honor Mr. Ross by an investigation of the rambling, disconnected, and, in some instances, varied statements made by him. It is quite sufficient to know that if he had not packed the meeting, and got his resolutions cut and dried some time before, nothing would have been heard of them. Beside the few who supported him, the prevailing opinion was that he had no just claim on the sympathy or support of the public. He stood on the platform rather in the light of a culprit, than an injured man. He had dared to say that he had “a grave charge” to make against someone, but when the County Council gave him opportunity to substantiate the same, he left the chamber in a most disrespectful way, and refused to speak because the public were not admitted. Mr. Ross is a would-be Chartist. He aspires to be

t demagogue, but lacks even that ability to obtain a following. He is not satisfied with “ right,” he wants “might” as well. It is not justice he seeks, but popularity. The intelligence and decree of the Council were not what he desired to appeal to, but the excitement and boisterous clamour of a public meeting. He has appealed unto Cjesar but Cais ar cannot help him, and there the matter will rest ; for it is pretty certain that unless Mr. Ross formally lays the charge before the Council, nothing more will be heard of it. From this position there is no escape for Mr. Ross ; and we feel bound to say, in the interests of the public, that this is demanded of him. We do not defend the Council, for we know nothing more than what Mr. Ross has said ; still he cannot escape the responsibility he has taken upon himself. The foregoing resolution can help him no further than to demand that he should prove what he has publicly stated, or cause him to stand condemned in the eyes of every honest man.

Mr. Ross was pleased to imply that he could not expect justice at the hands of nine Councillors, and two unfavorable reporters. Surely Mr. Ross’ unruly member is the worst enemy he has. They must be convinced that he is adopting a most impolitic course —one not at all in consonance with a spirit of public justice —or both the local journals would not be against him. For ourselves we give Mr. Ross assurance that if he takes the proper, and only course open to him, he shall have every assistance in our power in producing the truth, and let the wrong doer stand to the consequences. We are only unfavorable to him, because, so far as he has gone he is (as was stated at the meeting) not altogether blameless. Mr. Ross wants us to believe that his motives for moving in this matter as a ratepayer, are higher than they would have been if he had complained while in the employ of the Council. He says if he had reported the irregularities at the time, he would have been discharged. But he forgets that while his motives now are liable to be impugned, he would then but have done his duty. The Council did not appoint him to lay traps, and keep memoranda on which to found official complaints, and to rake up quasi-political grievances in the time to come. He was paid to do the very thing he failed to do, namely to be a check on either dishonesty or incompetency in the expenditure of public money ; and now, some months after the occurrence, he calls a public meeting, and declares that he was a paid witness to the dishonest abstraction of the ratepayers’ money, to the tune of over £lOOO sterling, and said nothing about it. And it must not be forgot that Mr. Ross will be in as an equally unfortunate position if he sheets the charge home, as if he fails in doing so, since he will have been the means of taking it out of the power of the Council to remedy the evil it was his duty to prevent. It is he who has been the cause of all this loss of public money, if his statements are correct; although this may not disturb him much, as his covert desire is evidently more to inculpate the County Engineer, than to recoup the County coffers with a sum equal to the amount of the error. Mr. Ross has been diligent in the preparation of a twohorned dilemma, and on one of whose horns he must eventually be impaled. To show the morbid desire Mr. Ross has for notoriety, and in illustration of his official unrighteousness, it is fitting to enquire why he called a meeting of the Borough ratepayers to hear a charge against the County officials. There were about 200 persons present, amongst whom there certainly were not more than fifteen County ratepayers. This fact alone shows the wisdom of Mr. Turton’s remarks that it was foolish to ask such a meeting to pass any resolution, condemnatory or otherwise; but when it is remembered that as many of the “free and independent” howled for the “ noes,” as yelled for the “ ayes,” to the several resolutions, and most of the same persons for both, there is but one conclusion that the audience went to the ball for a bit of fun, and they got it; in like manner Mr. Ross went there to exhibit his martyrdom, and he did it, but to his great discredit.