THE AVONDALE RESIGNATIONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 126, 18 August 1927, Page 10

THE AVONDALE RESIGNATIONS

IT is surprising that a public man with the fighting reputation of the Mayor of Avondale should not be able to accept defeat in a hardier spirit. Because his advice to the ratepayers against amalgamation with the city was disregarded, Mr. Tiarks, with three of his supporting members in the council, resigned in a melodramatic manner last night, and walked out of the Council Chamber. Had Mr. Tiarks considered the matter with a finer appreciation of the fact that public service must necessarily entail rebuffs, and demand sacrifices and the sinking of personal feelings, he would have seen the issue through to the end, and retained his mayoralty until the actual act of amalgamation. Then he could have come on to the City Council as one of-the representatives of the amalgamating distx-ict, and so been able to sex-ve the people of Avondale. A man of Mr. Tiarjts’s ability and political aggressiveness would have provided some of that “new blood” which the City Council so sorely needs, and he would doubtless have been able to render good service to his district. As it is, the gratification of that self-respect of which he has made such a monument, will be regarded by many as an act of personal resentment .against those who could not see eye to eye with him on the question of amalgamation.