The Wairarapa Daily. THURSDAY, OCTBOER 28, 1880.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 606, 28 October 1880, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. THURSDAY, OCTBOER 28, 1880.

The blunders of the Works Committee of the 'Masterton Borough Council have latterly come before the public on more than one occasion, and probably it is being generally recognised that the whole system on which the work is dono is simply one big blunder. Take the last meeting of the Council for example: at it the Councillors had to vote compensation to one man for mis-leading-him as to timber, and to apologise to another for misleading him by altering the specifications of a contract. No doubt the compensation and the apology will both bo accepted by the Borough contractors, but the ratepayers will not have a very high opinion of their representatives when they find out the mistakes they have been committing. We learn from one member of tho Works Committee that no regular meetings of that body take place. Each member of it, as it were, goes on "his own hook;" and occasionally, when two or three of them fasten in a promiscuous manner, on one job, they give antagonistic orders, and amuse themselves by countermanding each other's instructions. A nother member, of the Committee stated that they got on pretty well witk ctntractf n —that they went on a "give and take" system with them. Everybody knows what "give and take" means with a contractor. The giving is plentiful, but the takings are very small. At any game of give and take, (he contractor must necessarily come off best man. Cr Eenall claimed that (he Public Works Committee, in spite of mistakes, did its work cheaply and efficiently, We scarcely think any business man with any common sense can for a moment admit such a claim, It is contrary to all rule and experience that work done in the careless, unbusinesslike uiauner which is peculiar to the-Public Works Committee of tho | Borough of Masterton can be well done or cheaply done. "We fancy the ratepayers are paying dear for their Public Works whistle, even though that whistle be Or Renall, and that a wasteful and extravagant system of making and mending is adopted, in order that the amateur engineers in the' Council may have "something to do."' In. time, we trust that the ratepayers will find out that an unbusinesslike and irregular method of doing work is not a profitable one. We believe it would be .far better to employ the services of a competent engineer than to carry on with the three amateur engineers -'now in office. The paid engineer would be the servant of the ratepayers, but the three unpaid ones are not servants of the public, and are beyond all control. The climax was reached last meeting, when the Council hnmbly apologised to a contractor for the sins its Public Works Committee had been guilty of.