THE MAYORAL ELECTION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9072, 24 April 1908, Page 5

THE MAYORAL ELECTION.

MR CORADINE'S ADDRESS,

< There was a large attendance at the Town Hall, last evening, when the Mayor, Mr J. M. Coradine, gave an address in support of his candidature for a further term of office. The chair was taken by Mr A. VV. Hogg, M.P., who said Mr Coradine had been twelve months in office, and had spent, no doubt, a large sum of money, but he was there to explain how it had been expended. , Mr Coradine, in opening, said he was pleased to see such a large gathering. He was there to give an account of his stewardship for the past year, and, in doing so, would ask his hearers to take their minds back twelve months to the time when the present Council and himself took office. He was elected Mayor with four or five new Councillors, who, at that time, rightly or wrongly, considered things were going on unsatisfactorily in the Borough, and who proposed to effect a reformation, and endeavoured to do so. Perhaps some of B the reforms proposed to be effected were not outlined prior to the election, but nevertheless they were carried into effect. The old Council, as was known to all, had taken up a loan of £25,000 for. street improvements and widening, and similar works, and for purchase of plant and machinery. Just at the time he and the newly constituted Council took up office the last of the machinery had arrived, and it was found to be lying about with no provision made for its accommodation. In short, there was no ouch place i as a corporation yard or depot ; where the valuable machinery could ' be properly housed. The old Coun- i cil had spent a good deal of time 1 in endeavouring to find a suitable i

site, but they had failed to do so, or, perhaps, had failed to agree upon one, and the incoming Council had to face the position. At first he thought the new Council would be in the same plight, till he suggested that the Council had in its very possession the best site in the town for the purpose, in Hope Street, and after the Works Committee had gone fully into the matter this site was decided upon, and now the 3orough had yards in every respect suited for their purpose in the most convenient position in the Borough. The next question which his Council had to face was the water supply at the Abattoir, which was in a very unsatisfactory state. The Health Department had peremptorily demanded that something must be done to improve the water supply, and the old Council had arranged to take up a loan of £I,OOO to carry out a scheme of improvement which it Beemed to him and the Council would noc give the Abattoir the class of service desired. The official reports : showed that the £I,OOO would be ex- i pended on a system which would give it supply without pressure, and that i sven more (perhaps £400) would have to be spent, as pressure was really i

essential. The Council visited the ] works, and ultimately devised a i scheme which cost only £3OO, and ' which had tided the works over the I recent weather crisis, thereby saving the Borough £I,OOO in one transac- 1 tion. (Applause.) Then the Coun- I cil had to deal with an irrportanc ; issue affecting the Gasworks. The < manager, Mr Blackmail, reported that his plant was inadequate to cope I with the increasing amount of work required of it.' Reports of a comprehensive nature were obtained, and on these a proposal to raise a loan of £12,000 was placed before the ratepayers, and the poll was carried. Very satisfactory arrangements had been made with the Wellington Harbour Board for the borrowing of the money, and the Council was now in a position to put the Gasworks on a very g< od footing. Then Cr Haughey had suggested that the Council might face an important position orice and for all—that of removing the carbonizing plant of the works to a site nearer the railway station. At first blush, this did not appeal to the Council as a business-like proposition at that juncture, but the gas manager brought down such a favourab'e and such a business-like report on the matter, that the Council could

not ignore it. The then Town Clerk (Mr Brown) and Mr Blackman interviewed the trustees of Bisfcop's reserve, and a site was procured from them which would be most suitable for the purpose'required, and would result in a saving to the Borough of £SOO or £6OO per annum in haulage of coal alone. It would also be a question for the ratepayers to consider in future whether their new holders should not be erected there. After these works enumerated had been brought to a successful issue, the road machinery was quartered in its present, position, and yet the Council had been accused of doing nothing-. He was just taking his hearers step by step through the work, and the Council had not, as could be seen, been in the habit of starting everywhere and finishing nowhere. He defied anyone to prove that the Council had left unfinished one single work it had taken in hand. The Works Committee had determined, as had the Council, in dealing with work to be done to commence from the centre of the town and work outwards. They considered there were more important tasks in the centre of the town than on the outskirts, and meantime the municipal yards had to be established on a workable basis. The Council had "done nothing," but the speaker reminded them of the Public Baths question—settled in about twentyfive minutes by the Council—a question left unanswered by various Councils for a period of some eight or nine years at least. The baths were now an accomplished fact, and were erected on a central and suitable site. He thanked the public heartily for the way they had endorsed the Council's action in respect of the baths by the patronage extended towards them. Then the Council had to face the question of putting the roads in order. Chapel Street, for example, was by reputation one of the worst nads in the Borough, and was it not

now one of the beat in the town? Then came the improvements effected in Hall Street, Lincoln Road, Queen Street South, and other streets. In the putting in of the new culvert in Renall Street, the Council had removed what had constituted for years a menace to the public funds of Masterton. This and similar work had been put oft from year to year, and the Council had taken them in hand and done them thoroughly. Yet they

lad "done nothing!" He was canlidly proud of his Works Committee ind the work they had done. He touched upon the improvement o; Street, and said that he hac suggested a scheme to remove the lust in summer and the mud in ;er. He had been told that it woulc 3e necessary to plough up the road' vay and put in a good foundation. \s a practical man he believed other vise, and thought that the presenl "ou'dation was most suitable for the vork required. He was not, ir short, willing to spe:;d £SO or £6l )er chain on the work, and hac inally solved the question by.providng the present coating at a cost ol >nly about £25 per chain—a fad vhich he believed would be duly ap )reciated. (Applause.) On the ]uestion of the financial charges evelled against his administration ;he speaker said it was just one o: ;hose subjects with which a speakei 'ould "tie his audience in a kno':,' md while appearing to explain the position to them, might be mislead' ng them. Anyone who knew any ;hing of loan expenditure knew thai t involved a system of transfers o imounts from one account to ano;her. A lot had been heard aboul ;he "manufacturing" expenses—vhere did the money go and whal vas it expended upon? It went ii ;h3 breaking of metal and such-like vork. In the first place this was )aid for out of the general accoum >f the Boriugh, and when the wori vas completed the amount paic vas transferred to the general ac :oant from the loan account, so thai t appeared that not only had the lat;er account had more expended oul )f it than was actually the case, but t was credited through the transfei vith rsceiving more than it had hac ictually received. They were tolc ie had received £7,290, in fact'more E7,360, and that he had expended )ver £9,000. As a matter of fad le had done nothing of the kind Quoting figures, the speaker said the estimated receipts for the year were set down at £7,290, and , they were Irawn up by the Council and the Council's officers. Instead, onl.v £6,182 had been received, £l,lOO less ;han anticipated. The expenditure, )n the other hand, instead of beinj £9,000, had only been £7,526, anc f the money expected to be received lad actually been received the excess )f disbursements over receipts woulc >nly be £234; an amount which coul: )e accounted for by two i ems alone —the speaker's honorarium and the ncrease of office salaries through 'econstruction. With regard to ;he charges by Mr Hollings of ;ravagance, neglect and procrastinition, he dealt with them without personal feeling, although his XMient appeared to think that he :ould make the speaker afraid bj leclaring he lacked courage. He ;huoght he had already sufficiently •eplied to the charges of having lone nothing, and he said further hat no Council had ever instituted such a forward movement in the .own as had the present one. On the juestion of the reconstruction of the Borough staff, lie said there had beer a good deal of talk, and it was onlj what he anticipated. But from what had been saidpeople were led to believe it was a brand new thing foi the Council, whereas it had beer before various Councils, and he spok< from epxerience as the senior Coun cillor of the present representatives His convictions on the matter hac been established on experience anc

facts, and he was actuated in what he had done by purely public motives. He had no private end to serve, "hounding down," as it had been termed, an old man. He asked his hearerd if they thought he would be indiscreet enough to take the step he had done unless it were for a pjblic end. From his opponent's cescription of him in connection with this action, he hardly recognised himself as the demon painted. He further said that Mr Hollings himself had been troubled with the same position some years ago when he was Mayor. It now ill be_came him to shed crocodile tears over the speaker's actjon, and he shou'c, in doing so, "hide his teeth." He defended his action, and thought it was common knowledge that employeis who dismissed their men did not always make charges at the same time. His opponent talked in a sentimental strain, but he was merely using the episode as a ladder to climb up on, and he would, it he could, abandon his present attitude later on, as the aggrieved onfs and their friends would find out. Mr Coradine's further remarks on this subject were to the effect that, while he himself was quite prepared to take the responsibility of the matter as far as it had

gone, certain of his Council were entitled to exoneration, as they had not understood that the present

lengths were to be gone to. He said

that had certain of the late Town

Clerk's friends, not precipitated on the Council a different position to that generally intended, perhaps matters would not be as they now were. Passing on, the speaker challenged Mr Hollings to prove a single charge of extravagance, and said that on the latter's' interpreta-

tion of the balance-sheet he was certainly not a desirable candidate to offer himself as coming forward to put the embarrassed finances of the Borough in order. Regarding the £97 which Mr Hollings was so anxious to find an estimate for, that

was a transfer pure and simple, and this Mr Hollings did not understand,

or did not want (o understand. Mr Coradine defended the extra expenditure above the estimate on Fire Brigade requirement*-, twitting Mr Hollings with being out of the fire danger zone, and therefore probably indifferent as to the condition of the fire fighting plant. He also showed that the amount annually pain away to Hospital and Charitable Aid purposes was out of the Council's hands to regulate, and said Mr Hollings knew this. well, and should have

been careful not to have touched on this. Passing on, the speaker said that he had been strongly charged with neglecting to attend with great haste and diligence to the water supply. He contended that the Works Committey and himself had put in more time over the water supply than the Borough was likely to get from any future body of men. He said that instead of not attending to the matter they had so nursed the. supply that the town was able to reap the full ber.efit of every gallon of water available. Exceptional cases of shortage may have occurred but speaking generally the. town had little to complain of in its water supply last season. A lot had been

made of the lack of pressure atone period, but when it recovered shortly J af jerwards to an excellent standard I nothing was said. He summed up the position by quoting the opinions lof Messrs Dobson and Laing-Meason that the service was doing all that was required of it, but it was being overtaxed. He defied Mr Hollings. to point out in any official report of i Mr Dobson's where the latter had said that £3OO would put the supply on a safe footing, as had now been, done. A good deal had also been made by Mr Hollings of the apparent delay in widening Kuripuni Street. This work had been postponed not, as Mr Hollings alleged, to be used later as a catdi-vote work, but because it was less important than other works in the heart of the town. Further, it was desirable to complete Makora Street and Kuripuni Street at on© H ,JnTie, as these highways were : to nse connected, and a

considerable unavoidable delay occurred in getting the proper align- • ment of the Makora Road. He • believed his Kutipuni friends. ; would not be gulled by Mr Holr lings' remarks on this head. Coming to the loan money, Mr Hollings had asked what had been done with the £12,000 bequeathed the Council under the schedule. He denied that they got £12,000, but instead the position was that £3,170 was in thu bank when he took up office, and £6,700 had since been lifted. Of this £8,926 had been pxpended, leaving £944 still to be expended, while no less than £6,700 remained yet to bo lifted. (Applause.) What had been spent, the speaker thought, showed itself in the many works accomplished, such as corporation sheds, macadamising, tarring, culvert building, etc. He could not remember the mud of last winter as alleged by Mr Hollings, and asked his hearers if they did. He strongly denounced bis opponent's criticism of the work of the Borough staff in stigmatising it as "disgraceful," contending that it was a libel to assert that the work was being improperly done through lack of competent supervision. He challenged Mr Hollings to point out a single "disgraceful" piece of work. He characterised his opponent's speech as being one of vituperation, exaggeration, and misrepresentation—nothing more or nothing less. He declared that if his opponent were not filled up to the eyes with the green-eyed monster of personal iealousy, he would not be found making the rash statements he had given expression to. In outlining his intended policy, if elected, Mr Coradine produced the annual balance-sheet for the year for the Gasworks, which had only yesterday been compiled, and which showed that the nett profits for the year'a working was in round figures. He advocated the setting apart annually of a sum from these profits for some tangible municipal purpose, and preferably for the erection of municipal offices in the fii-st instance. Three ways of utilising tl.is profit suggested themeslves to him, the reducing of tiie overdraft, the improvement of roads, or similar works, and the erection of muncipal offices. The latter were badly needed, and the Gasworks could bear the burden of a £IO,OOO loan to be expended in the direction suggested. On the water and drainage policy he'said it rested with the townspeople themselves whether they declared for what Mr Laing-Meason had termed a luxury of a water supply and a consequent expenditure ; of £IO,OOO, or an increased purely domestic supply at a cost of some £9OO. He warned them that if the latter were chosen restriction would have to be placed

on the use of ivater, as last season's lines could not be followed. Regarding the drainage question, be said that was on a different footing, and the position in a nutshell wis that a scheme to drain the whole Borough would cost about £30,000, and if this were not taken in hand the Council would have to risk a large expenditure in improving the present outfall. Personally, he favoured facing the larger scheme and settling the question once and for all. Mr Coradine concluded his address with a strong appeal to his hearers to give an intelligent vote at the ballot box, without taking personal feeling on the shortcomings of either candidate into consideration. He resumed his seat amid apolause. The chairman then invited questions, but only one was asked, and this was of minor importance. Mr Pauling moved, and MrMcNair j seconded, a hearty vote of thanks to the speaker, which was carried on a show of bands. The meeting concluded with a vote of thanks to the chair, and cheers were also given for the candidate by a section in the hall.