TOWN CLERK DISMISSED.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18208, 20 October 1924, Page 11

TOWN CLERK DISMISSED.

WAIROA COUNCIL'S ACTION". LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL PETITIONED. (EPtcUX. 10 "THS rEESB."% WELLINGTON, October IS. Outspokenness characterised th« speeches made in tho Legislative Gouiicil last evening respecting the treatment by the "Wairoa Borough. Council of R. T. Esther, formerly clerk and I treasurer to the borough. According to the petition, the peti. tioner was town clerk and treasured 1 for 15J years up to Deoember, 1933, and up to that time carried out his dirties to the satisfaction of tho Conneal, as was evidenced by the Council giving liira an increase in salary in March, 1923. Because of failing health lie contemplated rotiring sit the end of the financial year, 1924, and in view ofi medical certificates he could have retired in terras of tho medically unfitt clause of the National. Provident Fund Act of 1914. On November 31st, 1993, the Council, without any warning; decided to give him a. month's notice. The petitioner was not allowed to obtain his superannuation. The committee considered that the i petitioner had satisfactorily supported, with evidence, the allegations ■of his petition. It was reported also that the Mayor of Wairoa had 1 declined to give evidence. The committee was unanimously of opinion that the petitioner vas entitled to his supetvin nuat.ittti allowance, and it recommended thattha Government should take steps, to assure the same to him. The Hon. W. Mclntyre said this wa9 , an extraordinary case, and be wished to place on record the fact fiat til® ; Council did not consider that the petitioner had received justice at the hands of the Wairoa Borough Council. This was the most glaring case of opjpreaKion and vindictive persecution agaiiutb a man that he lmd ever known, of in all his experience of local bodies. It wae& most despicable thing for a man to use his position to injure another, especially an employee. The petitioner was now in broken "health and had been deprived for petty reasons of the right to draw the superannuation, to which he was entitled. The Hon. T. W. Hislop said this w-aa a piece of the worst tyranpv and injustice that had ever came before hid notice as the work of a local body. During the wholo loj years of his service as clerk of the borough no complaint whatever bad been made against this man. Certainly he had' a little disagreement with one of the Councillors, whom he threatened with prosecution if the Councillor did not deeist from cruelty to an animal. Later be had a disagreement with the Mayon over a loaU election." On that oocaaiou tlio Mayor was a stroma partisan of on® iof tho candidates. Through a mistake | of one of the poll clerks the friend oJ! j tho Mav6r appeared on the night of j the election to have been returned, but next _ day the mistake was discovered ttjid it .was found that the Mayor's friend,had been defeated. The Mayor then displayed a bitter spirit toward the clerk and threatened him, as much as to say that he ought to have left the figures as they were. The Mayor showed animosity and opportunity "ins taken to have the clerk dismissed apod a month's notice. Every negation .of fairness was shown in the manner in which this was done. No notice was given to tho clerk so as to enable him to answer any allegations which might bnye been made against him, and to this day he did not know the reasons which actuated the Council in coming to its resolution. Afterwards they might have softened the blow, if there had bee-n any feeling of generosity on their port, by saying; that his ill-health j was sufficient to justify his retiring, and I that he was entitled to superannuation, j The committee were so shocked at this I want of fairplay that the Mayor wag j invited .to state the Council's tide of the case, but he had not taken advantage of the opportunity to give evidence. It must be «, shock to the cqmniunivy to know that there was a body in Xe.\' Zealand so devoid of public good conduct. He hopod that there would be sonic means of compeiisatina this man and treating him with that! fairness which the local body had refuted to him.