PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Tuesday, November 1, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 993, 1 November 1881, Page 2

PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Tuesday, November 1, 1881.

To-night the Borough Council will be called on to select, from a number of applicants, the most fitting one to be elected to the honorable position of Town Clerk. We do not now propose to say anything calculated to prejudice the election, either for or against any particular candidate ; but we feel it a duty, in fulfilment of our promise, made some time since, to remark upon the general position of affairs. There can be no doubt that the combined duties of Town Clerk, Treasurer, and Collector, rolled up into one, are too much to be borne, and executed faithfully by any one person. We care not what th,e official ability, and mental strain of the occupant may be, we simply assert that it is a matter of impossibility for any individual, without clerical assistance, to do and perform the duties for which he is engaged. When the Municipality was formed we warned the local authorities of this ; and we questioned the propriety of inducing men to occupy a position, for which, possibly, they were unfit, and must, in the nature of things, call for the exercise of superior attainments. Look at the matter how we will, there is no gain-saying this fact, that if the Council offer but a paltry £2OO a year, for a Town Clerkship, they will get only a 200 pounds a year man. It is not to be expected that, if a man is intrinsically worth a certain sum in the labor market, he will accept less, but for the purpose of sub-serving his own ends; and what are those ? To make it a convenient stepping stone to something better; to perfunctorily perform his engaged duties, so as to keep himself within the letter of the law, and his “weather eye lifting” the while for what may turn up in other directions. Our argument, pure and simple, is that if we want firstrate men, we must pay them first-rate salaries. The position of Clerk to a Corporation is one to which attaches many social and other distinctions. These may be more honored in the breach than the observance, but they are adjuncts which impart a dignity to the office. And if this is so in the ordinary acceptation of the duties of a Town Clerk, so much the more is it so when the exigencies of an economical administration require a kind of tri-pod official executancy to be rolled up in one person. To our mind a Town Clerk should be a gentleman ; one who is above an ordinary clerkship—for it is not all who can scribble behind a counter, or cast up a ledger in a counting house, with decent accuracy, who are qualified—a man of fair social position; and an educated man —in more senses than the mere abstract attainments of a figurist—one who is capable of holding his own with credit amongst better men—a representative man, one on whom will devolve civic duties, and a constant

inter-communication with those above him, and, as such, to cast an official lustre on those he represents. A Town Clerk should be at once a diplomatist, a scholar, and a ready writer. For the Gisborne vacancy, he must also be an accountant, and prepared for the official scullery work of the office; he must sweep out the office himself ; degenerate into a kind of errand boy ; “ polish up the handle “ of the big front door,” and all for £2OO a year ; and it is to this latter we raise an objection. The Gisborne Borough will be no more successful than other Boroughs in obtaining firstrate men, at second or third-rate salaries, to mix up superior with inferior work. We hold that a laborer is worthy of his hire, and should be paid accordingly. If a man has to execute the important offices of Clerk and Treasurer, enough. It is an indignity to ask that man to be a collector of rates and taxes, and to become a kind of municipal dun for the occasion. And depend upon it there is no man living, worth his salt, who will consent to do these tria juncta in uno duties unless, as we have before said, to “ clear out ” so soon as something else of a more lucrative nature offers. Of course we are arguing on the hypothesis that the salary of the incoming man is to be the same as that of the out going, for we have discovered nothing to indicate a desire on the part of Councillors to meet the real emergency which, probably, has led to Mr. Sherbiff’s resignationinsufficiency of salary. And it must be remembered that both the Treasurer and the Collector, and, indeed, “ any “ officer intrusted by the Council with “ the custody or control of money,” must. find security for the due and faithful performance of his work. Who, then, we ask, is likely to undertake the arduous and responsible duties appertaining to the triple offices of the Gisborne Town Clerksnip unless for one of two reasons, either he will expect better pay, or he will retire when he is getting best used to the work. If promises are held out to present applicants of greater remuneration, this is wrong, inasmuch as the names of some of those proposed are a sufficient guarantee of their ability. They need no probation. And it is only right that they should start fair, and know exactly that their abilities will be gauged by the value set upon them, by themselves. There is little honor in any man’s acceptance of the present vacancy, since the responsibility is so great, and the Council’s appreciation of it so small. We do not wish to be uncomplimentary to any of the gentlemen who aspire to the office ; but we are free to confess that it is quite on the cards that the occupant will seek rather to work out his own ends, than those of the burgesses, inasmuch as he will find in the end that he is—if a man of ability—either immeasurably underpaid or overworked.