Our Auckland Letter.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3928, 2 August 1881, Page 2

Our Auckland Letter.

(FBOM OI7E OWN COBKESPONDENT.) Auckland, Yesterday. THE POVEETY BAY STANDARD AND JUDGE GILLIES. The leading article in a recent date in the Poverty Bay Standard is rather warm on Mr Justice GHllies, and the probability is that the editor and publisher will be had up for contempt of Court. The editor does not mince -matters, and impliedly charges His Honor with bias. His Honor, however, may let the Gisborne journal off, as after all perhaps our Northern Chief Judicial dignatory will find it both agreeable and pleasant to " pass it by," as the North of Ireland people say. The comments of the Standard on His Honor would make one conjecture that Scotch whisky had something to do with it, or perhaps vice versa, but I have too strong a regard for His Honor to make my general remarks personal. The Auckland -Board of Education and one ot the local committee are at loggerheads, and some public expenditure is likely to be the result. The i hairman of the Board, Mr James McCosh (Jlark, must feel that unless he manages matters a little better 1, there are breakers ahead, independent of political ones, should he continue to try and rule local committees through the cast iron rule of official correspondence, which appears pretty general in one branch of the Auckland Educational Establishment. THE BOROUGH COUNCIL AND THE HAYOtt. A nice little affair has been introduced by His Worship (Mr James McCosh Clark) at the last meeiing of the Borough Council, being no other than an arrangement between theifon. James Williamson, President of the Bank of New Zealand, and the Mayor, whereby the. latter induced the former to make a written offer of his Surrey Hills Estate to the city for the modest sum of one hundred thousand pounds. It was singular, that simultaneously with the proposal of Mr Williamson that Mr Clark's political henchman, Mr It. H. Stevenson, actively interested himself and succeeded in getting a reso lution passed at the Ponsonby Annual meeting of ratepayers to merge that district into the city. Very singular that nearly all the followers of the present Ministry appear anxious to go in for big things. Mr Williamson's proposition was referred to the Finance Committee of the Borough Council, and let us hope it will stop there. Truly Mr Williamson is a far seeing man, knowing the small sum he claims for insisting upon the term named in the quiet club conversation between the worthy Mayor of Auokland and himself. There is no doubt but the ratepayers generally will anxiously look to the future development of the Surrey Hills business as a preliminary arrangement between the Honorable James Williamson and our worthy Mayor.