Sir Meredith's Costs.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3859, 16 July 1891, Page 2

Sir Meredith's Costs.

(to the editor of the daily.) Sir, -On reading the report of the County Council meeting and Mr Meredith's letter thereon, I feel bound —much against my grain—to say a few words so that the matter shall not go entirely by default. Councillor Mannsell's tribute to the god, " Majority," is amusing to say the lea9t of it when applied to the Whareama Eoad Board. Most of its decisions wera come to on the casting vote of its chairmen, and the casting vote (to put it very mildly) was not always disinterested. I must really congratulate Councillor Maunsell on being such a " Nathanael" in local matters. The Whar -ama Road Board was not in the habit of conducting its meetings on •: he strict constitutional lines that C iuncillor Maunsell has been accustom! A to in the Council and the Castle Point Eoad Board, and as a Board it entirely ignored the penal clauses in the Road Board's Act. The majority of the Board fully believed that the road could not be legalised in spite of the PostmasterGeneral and the law officers of the Crown (so much, so very much, depends supon how the case was represented to these august personages ! !) They were trotted out as bogies, but they didn't succeed in frightening many members of the Board. The minutes of the Whareama Road Board must be read between the lines and the motives for each vote well weighed quite apart from any public intereft. I have no hesitation in saying that the County Chairman would not have voted for the opening of the road had he been on the Board, and in possession of such facts as the Board were at the time, or I have sadly misjudged his standing as a public man. The greatest injustice will be done if the ratepayers are made to pay. lam such a small ratepayer that I can only look at it as a question of right versus wrong, "And because right is right to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of con* sequence!" I am, &c, Henby Elder.