COUNTRY CLIQUTSM.

Observer, Volume 5, Issue 117, 9 December 1882, Page 195

COUNTRY CLIQUTSM.

A Mongonui correspondent complains in strong terms that the business of the County Council is practically controlled by a small clique, in defiance of the Act, and beyond the immediate reach of the public opinion of the place. He says that at the recent annual meeting there were present at noon, the hour appointed, five members, some others living a considerable distance away not having arrived. It was consequently understood that the meeting was adjourned till 2 o'clock. At that hour three of the absent members put in an appearance, but it was then discovered that certain books which were expected by steamer from Whangaroa had not come to hand. There was a further adjournment till 4 o'clock. The Council met a third time, when the Northern

members objected to proceed with the business until the minute book was produced and the minutes of the last meeting read. Again the Council adjourned until V p.m., and at this hour one of the councillors announced that he had been elected chairman at a meeting held at noon. A demand to have the minutes of the meeting read at which the alleged election had taken place was over-ruled. The objectors demanded that the election should be cancelled, on the ground that it had been conducted in the absence of a majority of the • members, when the new chairman coolly remarked that there was no use arguing the matter, as the election would have been the same in any case. If our correspondent's' statements are true, this certainly reveals a curious state of things.