THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 1892. CORRUPT MOTIVES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2348, 26 April 1892, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 1892. CORRUPT MOTIVES.

The last meeting of the Timaru Harbor Board, was characterised by bitterness of feeling such as is seldom witnessed at meetings of public bodies. The ball was opened by Mr Teschemaker with a gross personal attack on Messrs Evans, Stumbles, and Hill, in the course of which he became unbecomingly violent, not only in his language, but in his actions. There is one thing which the majority of the Board wish to prove, and that is that the minority are inspired by a desire to borrow £50,000, so that it may be spent on the work; and to this they have tacked on the suggestion that Mr Stumbles is influenced in his actions by a desire to secure a contract for extending the mole. Mr Morris was the first to raise this point. Mr Acton went further, and said that influential people in Timaru had urged on him to give the contract to Mr Stumbles. Of course Messrs Evans and Stumbles at the public meetings denied this,' but Mr Teschemaker wanted to fix the onus of it on them, and in order to do so fell back on a report of a reply made by Mr Evans to the deputation which asked him to allow himself to be nominated as a member of the Board. He read from the Timaru Herald to the effect that Mr Evans said he would rather borrow £50,000 and extend the mole than accept the proposals of the engineers to go on with shingle-shifting for ever, and Mr Stumbles said that £35,000 would be sufficient. Now this was all Mr Teschemaker had on which to build his theory that Messrs Evans and Stumbles had spoken a falsehood when they denied they had advocated borrowing. He, in effect, called them liars up to their faces, and was so violent in his actions and words that had he behaved in a similar manner outside the Board room he would undoubtedly have been rendered accountable for his conduct in a peremptory manner. We are ready to admit that there has been a good deal of exaggeration on both sides. There never was a question so hotly argued, in which both parties looked upon all matters connected with it in a calm, judicious manner. Exaggeration is inseparable from heated discussions, but the public know this very well, and generally manage to make allowances for it. But there is one thing which cannot be pardoned in any discussion, and that is to attribute impure or corrupt motives without having good and substantial grounds for them. It is cowardly, dishonest, and unfair to do so, and this Messrs Teschemaker, Acton, and Morris have done. Having neither reason nor argument to uphold their proposals, they adopted the mean device of endeavoring to bring their opponents into disrepute by making it appear that they were actuated by a desire to borrow £50,000, so that it may be spent in Timaru, and that Mr Stumbles may get the contract. They thought that they would frighten farmers with the terrors of another loan, and talked about mortgaging their farms. They overreached themselves; their dishonesty was seen through, they themselves never believed that Messrs Evans, Stumbles, and Hill were actuated by impure motives, and certainly no one else did. What good would it do Mr Evans to have £50,000 spent in Timaru ? Does not Mr Stumbles know that tenders would have to be called for any work, and that he would have to tender like another man ? This is the most scandalous thing in connection with the whole discussion. We gave the shingle-shifters credit for honesty of purpose in the action they had taken, but when we find them trying to win their point by the mean, unmanly device of endeavoring to besmear the characters of their fellow members, we are driven to doubt the purity of their own motives. The way they have shifted their position meeting after meeting widens the room for doubting their honesty, but with this we shall deal in a separate article.