THAT WHANGA MEETING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 132, 25 November 1911, Page 4

THAT WHANGA MEETING

MR. McCUTCHAN'S STATEMENT. Writes Mr. W.' A. McCutchan, of Whangamomona, to the Stratford Post: Mt. Hine, in his reference at Tariki to the Daily News report of his Whangamomona meeting, is correct in two respects—lst, there was no difficulty in getting a chairman, and second the chairman's ruling declared Mr. Gleeson's amendment lost, as stated by Mr. Hine, but the meeting questioned the chairman's ruling, asking for a division. This request was not acceded to, nor was the resolution embodying a vote of thanks to Mr. Hine put to the meeting, which closed unsatisfactory to every one in consequence.

In your Monday's issue reference is made to a challenge and its acceptance Following are the facts:—Mr. Hine. in dealing with the £5,000,000 loan, gave figures showing the cost of raising the loan, and stating that he would withdraw from the contest if the figures worn shown to be wrong. I at once iccepted the challenge, knowing that full information had not reached the Dominion from the High Commissioner, and Mr. Hine, under interrogation, at once removed misconception by stating that his figures ware taken from the prospectus issued prior to the loan being underwritten or placed on the market in London, and there of course the matter ended. But Mr. Hine was unfair, and inaccurate in dealing with public works appropriations and expenditure, giving the bare amounts of the Parliamentary appropriations made in November and the expenditure on the 31st March following. When questioned as to whether he had taken into account the total of the grants offered to the local bodies of New Zealand, he said what he complained of was the' dilatoriness of the Minister of Public Works in dealing with the expenditure, and that neither in his time on the Stratford County Council nor in that of his questioner—myself—had grants been expended by the Council, and, further, 'that notice of the appropriations did not reach the local bodies until after the Ist January following authorisation. These statements are erroneous, both for the vears 1010-11 and 1011-12. Ta'ke the latter year as an illustration: The appropriations were before Parliament in the totter half of October. On the lGtli of that month the local bodies of the Dominion received circular letters from Wellington notifying the proposed appropriations, and on the 28th October the District Engineer, Taranaki. sent oui confirmatory notices. In the previous year these notices left Wellington on the 15lh November, and the confirmatory notices were sent from New Plymouth on l!)th November. These statements are from County records—they negative Mr. Hine's utterances; they are open to every ratepayers' inspection: they involve for the current year for Whangninomona Council alone a sum of £C1!8. and they illustrate not the Minister's dilatoriness but his solicitous anxiety for prompt expenditure, and, further, the Minister, in an autograph letter, dated 21st February, 1910, points out that the terms of the authorities issued aw identical with those used throughout the Dominion for many years.

Again, in regard to Mr. Hine's statements respecting-expenditure of grants: He surely cannot have forgotten the £'lloo grant spent by Stratford County Council in rebuilding bridges near Strathmore, and the £2OO grant spent in redecking bridges at Whangamomonu. and, further, the cost of administering the expenditure of these grants came out of county revenue and not out of the grants. All over the Dominion there is a multiplication of such instances, and Mr. Hinc is sufficiently astute to be. aware that criticism, which does not take cognisance fully of all the facts involved, fails to be destructive, and is unworthv of himself. —I am, etc., W. A. McCUTCHAX. Whangammnona, Xov. 22, 1911.