CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1821, 23 October 1884, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

To tiie Editor.

Sir, —I notice in yqur issue qf yes : terday that the Atasterton Borough Council havo paid me a left-handed compliment for the trouble and expense I took in conection with the attempt which was lately made to promote a local Gas Consumers Company in Masterton. For that compliment i beg to thank them, although the attempt of our worthy Mayor to be funny was not very successful. So far the attempt to form this Company has failec), an °l >yhj 1 Simply because certain public men who ought tp have taken a scheme that was intended for the benefit of the town by the hand, discouraged the project in every possible way. As a tradesman pecuniarily interested, I did my best for my fellow tradesmen in the matter, and if 1 have not been so successful as I could have wished, it is simply because those whose influence, an public representatives might be expected to. give strength tp such a movement, have buttoned their pockets, shook their heads doubtfully, and given it the cold shoulder. Even members of the Committee appointed at the public meeting were talked over, and instead of facilitating the object qf tho consumers their dissensions made ray task almost hopeless. I am still in hopes that a Consumers Company, however small it may be, I will be started, and that the Agents in Masterton of outside speculators will thus be checkmated, My opinion is—and it is also the opinion of a good many more that the Councillors who voted 'for the handing over the roads totheWajrarapa Gas Coinpany have not only broken faith with the Marlborough offer, but have also failed to appreciate the solemn duty to which as representatives they are pledged—of guarding the public interests. It is quite as important that gas should be in the hands of consumers, and free from outside control, as that a water supply should be in 'he hands pf ratepayers, and I ani astonished that a majority of Councillors, without calling a meeting or taking a poll qf the ratepayers should have acted in direct opposition to the expressed wishes of those burgesses who are chiefly concerned. I am, ic. Walter Eapp.