TIMARU ENDOWMENT.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2717, 3 December 1881, Page 2

TIMARU ENDOWMENT.

[To thb Editor. Sir, —On my return to Timaru last Thursday, after an absence of some days, my attention was drawn to a paragraph which appeared in your report of Mr Turnbull's meeting at the Theatre Royal. It states — The Mayor said he wished to make a statement in reference to the matter which had just been before them As soon as the draft Bill came down from Mr Turnbull he (the Mayor) took it to the Chairman of the Harbor Board, and asked that gentleman to lay it before the Board’s engineer, so that he might report on it and see that the land" described in it as an endowment to the Board was correctly described. The matter had been referred to the engineer, but he had not reported on it, an I the Bill passed as it now stood, viz., that instead of the Board getting up a strip of land 40ft wide they only got 12ft, The whole blame for the error rested with the Harbor Board Engineer, and no one else. In justice to myself I cannot allow such a statement to go uncontradicted. As far as I am concerned no plans or copies of the Endowment Bill were shown to me or placed in my hands before the Bill had passed. The first notice I had of the Endowment was from the description of it which appeared in the “ Timaru Herald ” of the 16th Sept.—the day after the Bill had passed. Plans of the Endowment were placed in my hands a few days before the Board’s meeting on Nov. 3rd, so that it may easily be seen no want of care or attention can be ascribed to me. Yours, &c., JOHN GOODALL, Engineer Timaru Harbor Board,