STATE AND LOCAL BODY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 184, 6 August 1925, Page 9

STATE AND LOCAL BODY.

ALLEGED BREACH OF FAITH. REPUDIATION BY EDUCATION MINISTER. HAMILTON COUNCIL'S STRONG PROTEST. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON, this day. An alleged breach of faith on the part of the Education Department in regard to the exchange of the piece of land between the Chief Post Office and the Money Order Office, in consideration of the Hamilton Borough Council closing Arawa Street aiid donating it as a site for the Hamilton Technical College, was spoken of in scathing terms by the Mayor, Mr. J. R. Fow, at the meeting of the Hamilton Borough Council last evening. The whole thing, stated the Mayor,»was a distinct breach of faith on the part of the Government, and personally he did not feel inclined to have any further dealings with a department which failed in that flagrant manner to honour an arrangement made by its responsible officers. He added that the Education Department had offered to sell the Victoria Street frontage to the council on easy terms —a roagnaminous offer when they had already arranged to give it gratis in return for a much larger area of land granted them by the council. It was fully understood at the time that the Education Department was in exchange to hand over one of their sections at the intersection of Victoria and Grantham Streets to the council, but unfortunately the precaution to see that the council's action was made contingent upon the department doing its share was not taken. When the Minister of Education was approached to perform his part of the contract, he stated that the records were so incomplete that he was not satisfied that the arrangement waß ever made, and accordingly repudiated any responsibility for the action of his officers, particularly as those concerned had now left the department's employ.

Representatives of the council, added the Mayor, had interviewed the secretary of the board, and he stated that it was certainly understood at the time that the piece of land in question was to be exchanged for Arawa Street. The department, remarked Mr. Fow, seemed to think that it could ride rough shod over the local bodies and just help itself to council property as it wished.

The opinion was expressed by one councillor that the transfer of Arawa Street had never been signed, and that, legally speaking, it did not therefore belong to the Education Department.

The council unanimously decided to enter a strong protest at the action of the department in failing to honour the arrangement made by its executive officers.