Our Auckland Letter.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3740, 20 December 1880, Page 2

Our Auckland Letter.

(FBOM OVfi OWN COBBEBPONDEKT.)*

Auckland, Saturday

THE KBW 10BD HITOB.

The opening address of oar new Mayor on his taking the Chair was not a rery brilliant oration. He has commenced his duties under very disagreeable circumstances, owing to the Corporation being sued in the Supreme Court for an injunction and costs by an aggrieved city property holder. The legal talent for the Corporation includes the AttorneyGeneral, and jio matter which way the result ends, the poor.unfortunate ratepayers must pay the piper. In many claims for fair compensation the Borough Council solicitors recommended an amicable settlement by way of arbitration, but some of those pig-headed Councillors would not yield, and as a natural consequence there will be/crops" of legal actions which may take yean to terminate. The late Mayor, Mr Peacock, wai very much buttered by the local Press. Possibly he deserved all the praise he got, but it was rather a singular circumstance that the senior member of the Council, Mr Waddel, in proposing a rote of thanks

to him on the expiration of his term of office, should, amongst other observations, make this remark—" But no matter how much they (the newspapers) have said in your favour, I feel it, is only a courtesy that we owe to you prior to your vacating the Chair." If that is not a left-handed compliment I do not know what else it is. Mr James McCosh Clark, the present occupant of the Mayoral chair, is a gentleman who must be well known to the Thames people, for was he not one of the Kail way Commissioners who sat on the extension of your railway, and retarted the progress and development of your district for many years hence ? I predict that before half of his year's duty is over he will be well nigh sick of the whole thing, - and that he will act like Mr Whitaker when he was last Superintendent for a short time—quietly slide out, hang the consequences, and leave the people to get another one to fill the Mayoral Chair. . , , THE NEW MiTOß's BANQUET. His Worship, Mr Clark, gave a banquet to a select few on Wednesday night in honor of his becoming Mayor. There were no representatives of the Harbor Board department proper present, and the absence of some of these as well as other heads of public departments have been commented on. The proceedings were very, tame. Music was absent, practical speeches the exception, and the bid for popularity over-reached. Mr Clark, who occupied the chair, had Mr Thomas Macffarlane as left hand Bupporter, the late Mayor being on bis right. The usual toasts were gone through, and the Mayor elect in proposing the health of new Governor, gave expression to the following:—" He was very unpopular in the last colony which he ruled, but it was right that the people of New Zealand should form their own opinions." Exactly so, Mr Clark, but Your Worship should recollect that political allusions of this sort were entirely out of place. The powers behind, of course, had tfebe thought of, and of course Mr Clark was only echoing sentiments which the late Mayor and several others would lustily respond to. No matter, human nature is weak, and that must be sufficient to account for many little matters. I must say that the dinner was OK, and served up in Cannin^fcbest style.