COUNCIL SALARIES

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 50, 21 October 1931, Page 4

COUNCIL SALARIES

G. C.

NAUMANN,

(To the Editor) Sir, — Kindly allow me on behalf of the Ratepayers' Association to refer to our ietter in your issue of 7th ult. and his Worship the Mayor's disparaging comments thereon a few days later. The object of this letter is not to bring forward further arguments in support of our case, which we

have stated directly to the council as well as through the mjedium of your valuable paper, and we feel assured that we have the sympathy of all right thinking people in condemning the attitude of the council for maintaniing salaries irrespective of prevailing economic condtiions. Although our case did not require the added support of comparisons, we were nevertheless tempted into quoting the salary of the Mount Albert town clerk, as reported some time ago in an Auckland newspaper and which seemed quite out of proportion with Rotorua salaries. The Mayor described that statement as incorrect and stated that the salary of the Mount Albert town clerk is £650 per annum and that he has an assistant and staff. Now, one does not generally connect the chief citizen of a municipality, who has ready access to informaof the kind in question, with incorrect statements in the Press, nor would one suspect a man holding that honourable position of resorting to 'such a questionable expedient as bluffing. My association, therefore, accepted the Mayor's statement as correct. Lately, however, we have unexpectedly received absolutely reliable information confirming our previous statement that the salary in question was fixed at £600 per annum, an assistant — if required — to be paid out of that sum. Thus, the Mayor's 1 accusation against the Ratepayers' Association of making incorrect statements recoils upon himself, and his lament: "It is a thousand pities that people who driticise do not make themselves convqrsant with the facts before they enter into print" is quite applicable to his Worship.— I am, etc-,

Hon. Secretary. ' Rotorua Ratepayers' Association.