The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE SATURDAY, APRIL 19. THE BOROUGH MAYORALTY.

Taihape Daily Times, 19 April 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

SATURDAY, APRIL 19. THE BOROUGH MAYORALTY.

(With which is Incorporated The T*ihapg Post and WalnjarPio Maws).

The period for which the Borough Council was elected is just about to expire through effluxion of time, and at the last meeting the present Council will hold, of an ordinary character, the Mayor, in saying farewell to Councillors, took occasion ■to review, or briefly skim, the period during which ho has occupied the Mayoral chair. The nature of Mr Arrowsmith ’s remarks strongly indicate that ho has the fullest realisation of the fact that man was not made for the town, but that the town was made for the man by man. The town is just what man can make it, and is willing to make it, and however able, disinterested, and wholc-soulled, a town-maker may be he is, even in his most earnest and successful public effort, liable to be misunderstood by his follows in the town building scheme, and that in this very misunderstanding lies the greatest impediment to his achieving the utmost. But tins is not at all peculiar to Taihape, and it will always stand to Mr Arrowsmith’s credit in the annals of the Borough that he did not abate his determination to do what ho considered best in the interests iof the community, through any opposition he encountered from the few, and he will vacate his position by his own desire, having earned, to an extreme, the thanks and appreciation of all who

are most deeply concerned in the town's progress and the community's

welfare. All who are inclined to look for a wrong side to the ledger should first acquaint themselves with the facts which stand out clearly throughout. Mr Arrowsmith's administration. Until recently he made himself, through pressure of circumstances, responsible for the Borough's finances, and his having been able to reduce the amount of rates to be collected reflects the amount of time and care he must have devoted to that important, aspect of his Mayoral duties. No Chief Magistrate, we hope, will ever experience such a strenuous five years in the future, as those through which Mr Arrowsmith has Piloted the Borough. The war has added immensely to the work of every Borough in the Dominion, and th e influenza epidemic brought the Mayor's responsibilities almost to the stage of having to devote the whole of his time TO public affairs, his nights, as well a s his days, being encroached upon. The whole Borough will regret that Mr Arrowsmith feels unequal to continuing at the head of Borough affairs, hut he sees the future is so fraught with still more hard work and still greater responsibilities that all ratepayers will sympathise with his wish to

turn it over to the euro of a younger man. We entirely agree with the Mayor in his statement that "the best asset a man through the journey of life ran have is the satisfaction of having done his duty to the best of his ability-'' A.ll know that his personal interests liav e been sacrificed to the interests of the eomrhuniry, and. in this respect, he hps set a lead that his successors may find it difficult to keep abreast of. "b\ r A."''owSmit.l) is relinquishing the Mayoralty after five of the most anxious and arduous years the ■British Empire lias ever passed through since its history has been written, and

it is the irreducible minimum of justice to admit and record public appreciation of the success of the work into which he has thrown his best effort. There is not a-ratepayer in the Borough who will not wish for the maxim mi! good results from the selfsought rest which Mr Arrowsmith, as Mayer, has abunclantlv earned.