DISSOLUTION OF THE BOROUGH.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2446, 15 March 1888, Page 2

DISSOLUTION OF THE BOROUGH.

TO THE ElHTO'.i. Sir, —As an outsider, I have found considerable amusement for the past few years in the play of politics in the borough, which generally goes by the name of a contest between East and West, how truly I neither know nor care. The late correspondence re the disruption of the borough is, like its congeners in the past, as good as a play. With the partial exception of " Prohibition," every one goes in for slating h's opponents instead of arguing the point at issue, and the result reminds one of nothing so much as unskilful boomerang play, where the deadly curve strikes the thrower as often as, and sometimes more fatally, than Ilia opponent. "Prohibition" sounds the only genuine note in the whole diapason of discord, by asking for a detailed account of expenditure on both sides for the past three yearn. Ratepayers on both sides naturally objecc to the expenditure of some £4000, now supposed to be in the bank to the credit of the Borough, when they reflect 011 such instances of mismanagement in the past, as the Cook-street and Vincent drains, and that which is or was supposed to serve the Union Bank premises, the Northcroft-Cemetery drain, fie trough in Bridge street, the Public Baths on both sides, etc., etc. When public buildings 011 a plan to suit a colonial capital, and on a site to suit but one burgess, and he, a councillor, are fought for tooth and nail, and while public abattoirs, an enormous benefit to both town and district, are let slide on the first croak of natural discontent, people will hardly believe in the boi/'i jiiks of the Council. And a temperate objection to the saleyards, good in themselves yet vitiated by their site, is met not by argument, but by a sling at East side jealousy, while every man with anjeyein his head, unspectacled by self-interest or prejudice, sees that by the racecourse is the site, where there are nearly equal railway conveniences, freedom from danger to the public using the main thoroughfare, or children attending school, and paddocks for animals arriving early or departing late from the sale. "Prohibition's" request, if granted, might also show whether Councillors in the past, of course the present are incapable of it, have ever neglected works of general public utility in order to serve the interest of a friend, client, customer, debtor or creditor. At the same time dissolution of the Bnrough seems rather a round-about and drastic way of signing a cheque for £100!) in favour of the Colonial Treasurer, and involves, perhaps, as much and as many unpleasantnesses as the present method of dribbling away the aforesaid sum. Starting Hamilton as a Borough m-iy have, been an expo•iiiiciitinn in cur jinn 1 vili, an experiment 011 an unselfrespeoting corpse not to be galvanised into vitality, but its dissolution is certainly a petilio in forma pauperis, or in other words resembles the action of craven merchants, who, while settling a handsome competence on their better halves, take advantage of the merciful provisions of the law in favour of insolvent debtor--, to pay "2s (id in the £, when decent prudence, pluck and avoidance of the cry "stinking fish," would have left them with a " plum" and their creditors with 20s in the £. — Yours, with profound respect, Ax OoT.siimu.