South Canterbury Times, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2464, 10 February 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1881.

The ratepayers of the Geraldine, Mount Peel, Mount Cook, and Levels Road districts will only be consulting their interests by keeping a vigilant eye on the doings of the Geraldine County Council. That somewhat extraordinary body was brought into existence some months ago, with what object even its members seemed unable to explain. It was surmised that some of them desired a cheap trip to town, and that others wished to air the bucolic grandeur that attaches to the degree of a County Councillor. If they have not done anything that can be called distinguished, they have varied the monotony of a purposeless life with a little financial scavengering. One of their very first patriotic efforts —if we recollect aright—was to endeavor to secure free passes for themselves on the railways. Unfortunately the Government was unable to appreciate the wisdom of such a movement, and their self-sacrificing ambition in the direction of cheap-travelling-as-often-as-you-please had to lapse. The members, however, lost no time in redeeming their failure as far as possible, for they immediately passed a resolution allowing themselves compensation for loss of time and travelling expenses. Of course, this was quite legitimate, although it is not the course followed usually by Road Boards, Borough Councils, and a number of other public bodies. We will not bring the members to task for giving personal claims a priority over public considerations. Since the memorable struggle in the interests of cheap travelling the Council have been settling down to business. Their chief difficulty has been to discover work, not to perform it. Although the Geraldine County is a moderately large one, and comprises several Road Districts, the Road Boards have done their work so thoroughly that the county members have felt themselves in the position of the laborers who sang—

We’re all the way from Manchester And we’ve got no work to do-00-00. It lias only been by the exercise of the utmost ingenuity that they hare saved themselves from the fate of the unemployed. The disastrous eftect ol total stagnation have been warded off by the attention devoted to dogs and ■slaughterhouses. In other words the Council has been trying to eke out an existence from canine flesh and butcher’s meat. Even dog flesh is better than nothing to a starving county. A fragment of the impounded land fund has also tended to prolong the agony, and wonderful to relate the

Council has actually voted a small donation to the Timaru Hospital. They have also entered into the bridgebuilding business, and it is to this part of their operations that we desire to call attention.

The Opihi bridge contract we shall pass over in silence. The Council have nibbled at the Temuka bait, and the bridge will just about relieve them of their banking account. At the last meeting of the Council another bridge much larger than the Opihi one came into startling prominence. Messrs Walker and Wright waited on the members on behalf of the Ashburton County Council to request that the County of Geraldine should contribute its quota towards the Rangitata traffic bridge. The total estimated cost of this bridge is £OOOO, and according to the statement of the delegates the Ashburton County Council has spent £3OOO on the work. The remaining £3OOO which is required to complete the bridge they now expect to get.. from the Geraldine County Council. The deputation admitted that the Ashburton Council has been playing a waiting game. They would have consulted the Geraldine County members before in reference to this bridge but they were wailing for the Counties Act to be brought into operation in the district. The Counties Act has been in force for a considerable time, but probably tbe Ashburton members thought that the cherry was not quite ripe—that the proper period for making a sudden dash at the Geraldine Comity had not arrived. In short the representatives of the Avealthy Ashburton County Imre been watching their poor relative on the south of the Rangitata like a cat Avatchiug a mouse. Considering all tilings they have made a very successful spring. They have exacted an acknowledgement of responsibility from the Geraldine members, and a resolution has been passed to the effect that as the Council has no funds, in hand, the Geraldine and Mount Peel Road Boards bo asked to contribute £IOOO each, failing which the Council Avill proceed to strike a rate of sixpence in the pound over the Avholc county.

It is pretty evident we think that the well-known lines—

Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do, will be verified in a way most inconvenient to the settlers of South Canterbury if steps are not taken to checkmate the Geraldine County Council. This body has failed as yet to do anyi liing* very useful, and it is developing the instincts of the municipal larrikin. A county rate has been suspended like the sword of Damocles by a single hair over the necks of the ratepayers ever since this local governing monstrosity came into existence. To all appearance, the members have simply been looking about for a good excuse for sending round the collector. Had they not been so inclined they would not be so ready to acknowledge a serious responsibility in connection with the Rangitata bridge. The bridge we refer to is of no consequence whatever to the great bulk of the settlers of the Geraldine County, while it is of vast importance to the big landlords who represent themselves in the Ashburton County Council. We do not blame the latter for trying to get their properties ..improved, but in this instance they should bear the expense out of their own fat purse. Messrs Walker and Wright and their County colleagues are only doing what forty - nine out of every fifty in their position would do. Having extensive properties on both sides of the river, and having to travel their herds and flocks from one bank to the other, a free traffic bridge will save a large amount for ferrying. But what benefit the farmers ou this side of the Rangitata are going to derive from this bridge we are at a loss to understand. As well might the settlers of the Levels, &c., be asked to contribute towards the bridge that has just been erected over the Clutha. The river Rangitata does not flow between them and the high road to rail, port, or market. The bridge, we have no doubt, will be of great advantage to the properties, at present partially isolated, between the Ashburton and the Rangitata ; but the Ashburton County Council, being almost wholly interested, and its members being very selfishly interested, they ought to bear the cost. A demand of this kind comes with a very bad grace from a County Council that was born with a silver spoon in its mouth. The Ashburton County members have never had occasion to apply the rod to their own backs in the shape of a country rate. They have had a splendid fortune from the Legislature, and they have now some £50,000 or £OO,OOO, we believe, to their credit, while the Geraldine County is as poor as a Church mouse, and ought to be arrested for vagrancy. The members of the Levels Road Board recognising the hardness of the times recently resolved to spare the pockets of their constituents as much as possible, and only struck half the usual rate. If a county rate is indicted their generosity will go for nothing. The money which the impecunious county members propose extorting from the settlers of the district, and applying to the finishing of the bridge which the Ashburton County Council has commenced, might just as well be thrown into the sea, so far as the settlers in this neighborhood are concerned. We do not care about using harsh terms, but we have no hesitation in denouncing the proposed rate as a monstrous imposition. The farmers of South Canterbury have quite enough to do to keep their roads in repair without making traffic bridges for the squatters across the Rangitata. After the way in which the two or three gentlemen who are assuming the role of Geraldine County Councillors

acquitted themselves at their last meeting—after their wonderful display of shrewdness and diplomacy before the brace of delegates from Ashburton —we would remind the Levels settlers that their only safety lies in separation. and that the sooner they divorce themselves from this mongrel-fed Geraldine County Council the better for their pockets. We might also suggest to the Geraldine County members that as they have had the temerity to commit themselves in the face of an empty county exchequer, to the expenditure of £3OOO, and as they have wilfully resolved to make a demand from two Road Boards which they know to be illegal, they should save the ratepayers all anxiety by paying the money out of their own pockets.

The South Canterbury Board of Education are in the position of the

Old woman who lived in a shoe, Who had so many children That she did’nt know what to do. The members of the Board have a large family of School Committees and teachers to look to, and through want of a little ordinary tact the family in growing disorderly. The Wairnate School Committee are in a state of active rebellion in consequence of the game of cross purposes that the Board has lately been playing,' and the Waihi Bush Committee have wiped themselves out by resigning in a body. The quarrel between the late Waihi Bush Committee and the Board is more paltry than pretty. The Waihi Bush schoolmaster applied for a vacancy in the Timaru High School, and having obtained it tendered his resignation to the Board. Hot wishing to lose him the Committee prevailed on him to remain at Waihi Bush, and the perplexed teacher asked leave to withdraw his resignation to the Board, and requested the High School Governors to release him from his engagement there. The High School Board refused, and the Education Board assented, but only on condition that the amount owing to the Board’s Chairman for advertising for a successor, should be paid by the applicant. The teacher, iitiding himself between two lives, adopted the most honorable course open to him, kept faith with the High School Governors by taking up his appointment, and escaped the Education Board’s blister by forsaking the Waihi Bush School. The sequel to this small but lamentable affair is that the Waihi Bush Committee have resigned in a pet, and a school which boasted about 100 pupils, or as large an attendance as half-a-dozen of the Rev George Barclay’s pet voting academies, has had to be closed. Between the Education Board and the Waihi Bush Committee the honors ought to be fairly divided. Both have, blundered. The one lias lost a good teacher through a display of contemptible parsimony, the other has acted with more haste than good judgment. It is a pity, however, that between the meanness of the Board and the indiscretion of the Committee the children of Waihi Bush should suffer.