The Telephone. WITH WHICH INCORPORATED THE POVERTY BAY STANDARD. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 266, 21 October 1884, Page 2

The Telephone. WITH WHICH INCORPORATED THE POVERTY BAY STANDARD. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21.

The Committee appointed by the County Council to inquire into the alleged claim preferred by Mr. H. T. Petchell, of Ormond, against that body, met yesterday in the County Council Chambers. The alleged claim is indirectly connected with the contract entered into a couple of years ago by the Borough Council with Mr. Oxenham for a supply of road metal for the town. For the purpose of getting the gravel from the bed of the Waipaoa River it was necessary to run the line a distance of about one mile through what is known as Section 19, or Cohen’s paddock, at Ormond. In order to do this a private arrangement was entered into between the Contractor and the lessee for the time being of the property. The lease has since changed hands, having been acquired by Mr. Petchell. This gentleman recently notified to the County Council that the surety in Oxenham’s contract who had hitherto paid for the right to run the tramway through Section 19, refused to acknowledge any longer his liability, and declined to pay the sum of thirty pounds alleged to be due on the 31st of August last. In reply to a communication from the County Council stating that that body was in no way responsible in the matter, Mr. Petchell wrote stating that if the claim was not met he would take up the rails and sell them, and that if the Council had any proposal to offer they were to make it to his solicitor. The value of these rails to the County is estimated to be five hundred pounds. It would be extremely injudicious on Mr. Petchell’s part, if he desires to conserve his own interest, to allow himself to be led away into any precipitate action of the sort he indicated. In the first place he might be unable to find a purchaser for the rails, and secondly, that he had absolutely no legal power to do what he apparently contemplates, to say nothing of such a contingency arising as having to replace the rails afterwards at his own cost. The committee yesterday after the fullest investigation found that the County Council was in no way liable to Mr. Petchell or to any one else. The County Council, as was shewn by the records of the office, was simply a customer of the Borough Council' for so many thousand yards of gravel. The Committee having penetrated still further into the question discovered that even Mr. Petchell had no power to make any claim against the Council. The contract was finished some time ago, but the tramway line will hereafter be useful to the County. The County Council, or public body, will as a matter of course be prepared to enter into any equitable arrangement with the persons entitled to be treated with. And, although it is said by some one, that corporations, as a rule “ have neither bodies to be kicked; nor souls to be damned,” we do not think that where the destruction of public property is threatened, the Cook County Council is likely to allow itself to be bounced.