Cr. Murray Replies

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 267, 1 February 1928, Page 15

Cr. Murray Replies

REAL CAUSES WANTED HIS VERACITY DEFENDED The following reply has been forwarded to THE SUN by Cr. W. H. Murray, in connection with statements appearing on Saturday. Sir.— The reply* published by you last Friday from Councillors Phelan, Davis and Casey could more correctly be termed eye-wash. Does this triplet expect the public to swallow the casual assertion that they with “further information’’ caused Councillor Phelan to move a motion in the direction indicated, especially in view of the manner in which they have assisted me? The latter has not stated the real cause of his motion. I invite him to rectify the omission and also to publish in his next literary effort the; reasons he gave me personally for his intended cleaning up of the engineer's department and for his request to me some five months ago to “take off the gloves and get ir\to this matter and help him to clean it up.” Councillor Davis’s Trade Hall friends knowing that his strength in council colloquy is his silence, will appreciate his one and only remark at the inquiry committee meetings announcing on September 5 that on August 19 there were 13 workless council dray teams eating their heads off in idleness in the council stables, while the teams of a city firm were being employed at high cost to the city, and when he further announced that a Mr. A. told him that a my*sterious Mr. X. earned £55 in one week carting for the Auckland City Council, Councillor Davis was going to play “the deuce” about it all.

I invite him in his next contribution to your paper to supply "inside information” of the sequel to this, his only “Sherlock Holmes” stunt. Please, Councillor W. Casey, may I publish what happened at that confidential cabal into which I was inveigled by phone at your private office in Beaumont Street on September 17 last, which was attended by you and your fellow’ council committeemen, Messrs. Phelan. Davis and Donald, and also by two City Council carriers, who were present and spoke thereat? You will remember, Mr. Casey, that at your own request I acted as minute recorder there. That meeting was the first insight I had into the ways that are dark.

Those exhaustive inquiries and visits from which it was expected to effect considerable savings and efficiency in control were, to my mind, mainly joy rides in some of the more sumptuous of the 19 motor-cars attached to the Town Hall, whose speed kept Councillors Davis, Casey and Phelan from smelling out bitumen leakages and from detecting kerbs and pitcher dumps. The assertion of the Casey party that kerbs and pitchers were fully inquired into and the position cleared up is a unique distortion. For they knew nothing, or at least said nothing, of kerbs and pitchers, extravagance and wastefulness of public money until I procured and published an official return of supplies and suppliers.

If as they assert, the committee of inquiry—before whom I was summoned to prove in private my statements made in open council —endeavoured to maintain an impartial attitude, then Mr. Phelan and his friends failed fatuously.' The transcript of the stenographer’s verbatim record of the committee's proceedings will, when printed, be supplied by me to householders.

Sir, you on Saturday last permitted Councillors Phelan, Casey and Davis to publish a gross and unjustifiable accusation against myself in the following words: “After this display by Councillor Murray, the committee privately investigated a very serious assertion by him. .This practically involved a charge of theft against one of the high members of the city staff. The allegation was proved to be absolutely unwarranted and untrue.” As this asserted investigation is suggested to have taken place in my absence, and as this publication of yours is the first I have heard of the question—and as I have no knowledge of the subject dealt with —I take this earliest opportunity of stating publicly that there is neither truth, justification nor excuse for this assertion by the three named councillors, reflecting upon my veracity. I state emphatically that no such charge, statement, or assertion was ever made by me against anyone. The public well know that throughout the inquiry I have refused over and over again to do aught but endeavour to expose official waste and extravagant inefficiency. Messrs. Phelan. Davis and Casey will be afforded judicial opportunity of adducing something other than composite insinuation. W. H. MURRAY. Councillor.