CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1808, 8 October 1884, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor;

Sir,—More power to Mr Reese the contractor tor the fearless manner in which he has (through the medium of your valuable paper) bearded the County lion in his den, and let the ratepayers see how the oracle is worked in the Engineer's Department, It is pretty well known that the head of the department, like the Highland Chieftain of old, has a long " tail" of followers, and hangers on—fellows who are put over contractors and tradesmen who have served their time and learned their biisiness'properly, but who have to stand being I dictated to by these lackeys of the Chief Engineer. These men, if relegated to their proper position, would be punching bullocks (as some of them were originally before being taken under the fostering wing of their patron saint.)' That is bad enough, but when some of them are allowed to tender against bona fide contractors when any good thing,' is put out for competition, and then given a snug job at eight or nine shillings a day when they are idle, it is time that some of the County members took the matter up and stopped such a fragrant abuse ot power. .Otherwise every contractor who is worth his salt •will decline to competed for County work, and'it will all fall into the hands of a lot of hat-touching duffers. '' i ; . lam,<kc, Sub-Contractor.

(To the Editor.) Sir.—A letter appeared in the columns of your contemporary of Saturdays issue signed •' Wathcbful," and it seems to my mind that it would be very hard to tell what " Watchfull" is watchiug, or what he wants, except that in som-5 paternal governing local body, who would invent a spoon feeding machine and place that useful aperalus in the bed-room of " Watchful" with an analytical chemist to examine overy spoonful of food he might swallow, and if possible b stamping and woighing machine wheredy the bakers could not wrong him. As for his milk I would suggest that a cow be, procured for him so that he might get the teat in his mouth. But. before going any further we don't know /'Watchful." He is some anonymous creature, who is he at all! afraid to give his name 1 Well, sir, I will suggest the initials for his name—" A.S.S," Trusting you will pardon my trespassing on your valuable space. I anv&c,, W. Parkes.

TO THE EDITOR, Sir,—l had no idea when I closed my laat letter of returning so soon to the subject, but the engineer who I met this afternoon, challenged several of my statements, and in the course of our brief debate, he got irritated, (as is his usual way when bearded in his den) and frequently interspersed the dialogue between.us, with such dainty language as the following:-" It's a lie! It's a 'falsehood! It's a deliberate falsehood!" and so on; Now, sir this is the second time that I have had to beat a retreat from the presence of the same unmannerly and impudent'public servant, and I appeal to you, sir, in the nterests of common decency, to say whether this kind of langaage, is in conformity'; with the dignity that rightly ■belongs to his position! Sir/his conduct to me will give you a faint idea of the course he. adopts towards some of the less resistable, but industrious hard working contractors in the bush, some of whom are easily sat upon; but h 6 is more disagreeable towards another class that will not be sat upon by him nor his satellites. I refer particularly to Irishmen, who everywhere but here supply the bulk of labor on our public works, This ib one of tho results; there is scarcely an Irishman in the district dare trust hinißelf and his interests under this department; and another result is this, that I, who have employed a large number of Irishmen from time to time on the works under the Council, have had to stand by and listen to the Inspectors (who have been nursed with great care under the protecting wing of the engineer), slandering their nationality and work, in roost disrespectful terms, when I have had eveiy reason to be satisfied with their work, This is a bad state of things, but it would be rendered very, much worse if the contractors were to in any way chastise the Inspector for such unmanly .conduct, because he would pi ess the contractors, (out of revenge,) to, do unnecessary woik under the contract or perhaps insist on his performing work not in his contract at all, and to appeal to the engineer under these circumstances is simply to incur his displeasure, and more expense Moreover, an appeal from the' decision of the

engineer to that of our present Chairman by contractors" who have had dealings with the department, can only beraado in the utter hoplessneas of a forlorn hope, for the department is his peculiar care, and the engineer his bosom friend. There is no redress for wrongs that are daily being perpetrated by those in offiice, but at law, and who would advise or approve of a contractor going to law with a doverning body that he earns his bread and butter under? If he did it would only be to court 'failure in nine cases out often because he might not have a good enough legal claim, and the department, as I know to my cost, would deny the moral one. Kindly allow me a word in reply to a statement re the engineer's advice.to call for tenders. Sir, it does not affect my statement in any way .and conser quently is a. clumsy subterfuge on his. part, that he never would' have perpetrated if he-could only believe that poo'ple generally, possess common

sense. It is"astonishing, the vanity of this, all-knowing man who has presumption enough in season and out of season to speak of the best efforts of skill on the part of our Blackett, Blair, O'Gonnor, and Maxwells as only being "so, so," you know, and/not to the purpose; and all this too, sir, while he himself does not possess suffioient

practical knowledge to launch successfully a very poor imitation indeed of a small idea of a footbridge designed, no doubt, by some great engineer, Let him see to this, sir, and remember that there are plenty of practical men in the district who are capable of estimaing the value of his knowledge in many respects; and I believe that it is not great in any direction unless as an imitator, I admit freely that hejs clever enough in that respect, Bffi;, sir, I am sick of his humbug, and more so of his insincerity in office, I could prove that he promised work to another contractor that the Council would call for tenders directly. Oh what a tangled i*eb we weave Whoa first we practice to deceive. But, sir, what think you of this 1 JJhe chairruanhas admitted that the engmw did advise him to have the worlrof this Waipoua bridge done by before the /meeting ot the' croicil. "Then," he says, "you know this was privately and not in my official capacity." Oh dear no! that would never do. But mark what follows. The engineer advises the Council to call for tenders for the bridge, officially mind you, and notwithstanding this fact, the chairman proposes, and carries into effect the .engineers -private■"advice, How is it,' sir;, that these gentlemen agree before the meeting and are of different-views'-arthe Council table? Is it,, sir,: for the purpost) of taking advantage of the trustfulness" of their fellow councillors, and thereby depriving legitimate contractors of an opportunity only of making a. few a proper way 1 But why should 'IW more? The thing is beyond debati The reply the engineer is making verbally to uiy last letter to all and sundry who may broach the hiin is, that it is a tissuSp falsehoods from beginning to eiid. Now, sir. let me just say that if thero is one specimen of our kind that I dislike more than another it is he, who would knowingly speak falsely, and, sir, I.beliove that I would be mean indeed if I wcrecapablo of such a thing, Now, sir, allow me to point out a very irregular transaction on the part of this body of administrators of public money. The bridge over tbo Mungapakeha that was built by the inspector contractor never was tendered for, and it cost with its approaches just iBl6 7s and inspector contractor got overy sliilhug of it. Now this bridge is exactly the same size as the one to be built, at the Waipoua for LSOO. What I want to direct your attention to, is the fact that the County engineer did not submit the plans for the Mungapakeha bridgo for inspection to the contractors or. the oublic and by not doing so he commjfc. a grave breach of duty and I don't kpF what the consequences to the Council will be. I am, &c, Alex, Reese, Contractor, [We consider Mr Reese's sens 6 of grievance has carried him too far/-A We agree with him. that -the WaTO poua bridge should have been let tender, but we have no sympathy with his..;personal' attack on the-' County Engineer. We have known Mr King some dozen years, and all our; experiences ot him tend to disprove the unfavorable description which Mr Reese has. drawn of him. •■We believe that in cooler moments ■Mr Reese himself will be the first to' regret his somewhat intemperate personal attack on -the County . Engineer.-i-ED. W.D.]