ST. KILDA COUNCIL'S AFFAIRS.

Evening Star, Issue 8279, 26 July 1890, Page 3 (Supplement)

ST. KILDA COUNCIL'S AFFAIRS.

TO THK KDITOB. Sir, —1 read in last night’s Star the letter of “ Thomas Caddie, member for Park Ward,” on the appointment of a, successor to, or rather on the dismissal of, Mr M‘Donald, the inspector of works for the borough. Methinks “Thomas Caddie, member for Park Ward,” doth protest too much. There are too many crocodile tears his labored effusion to make it of any weight, and anyone who has been in the habit, as I have, of attending Council meetings occasionally and listening to the altercations which took place at the Council table —yon could not call them debates—would readily have been able to see with half an eye that certain members of the Council, not excluding “Thomas Caddie, member for Park Ward,” had, to use a colonial expression, “a down” upon poor M’Donald. No matter what he did or suggested, it was wrong in the eyes of those immaculate councillors, and to an outsider it seemed as if they took great pleasure in bull-baiting him.

“ Thomas Caddie, member for Park Ward,” clearly shows by his references to these old women’s tales as to what M‘Donald said he would do (I don’t believe a word of them, or that M‘Donald ever said such things) that he is not fit to sit as a councillor. He ought to have known, if he does not, that even if M'Donald said so, they were only frothy bounce emitted when under the natural feeling that he had been harshly dealt with. “Thomas Caddie, member for Park Ward,” says that a petition signed by eighty-four ratepayers was presented to the Council requesting them to retain M'Donald’s services. Did it never strike their sapieucies that such a petition must have been signed by nearly every ratepayer in the borough ? And yet a majority of the Council (four men) would not receive it, thus setting themselves in opposition to almost every ratepayer in the place—truly a case of the minority ruling with a vengeance. But the elections take place in less than a couple of months,and, I believe, that “Thomas Caddie, member for Park Ward,” andCr Skipworth, for Musselburgh Ward, who is looked upon as the leader of the bull-baiting fraternity in the Council, retire by effluxion of time. Those eighty-four ratepayers should see that both of them are relegated to that obscurity from which they should never have been permitted to emerge, and never again allowed to sit at the Council table to disgrace it with their presence.—l am, etc., A Listener. South Dunedin, July 25.

10 THE KIJITOB. Sir, —Having had my attention called to a letter in your issue of the 22nd ult. signed “T. Caddie, Park Ward member, St. Kilda,” and which, to use a mild phrase, is truly characteristic of your correspondent, permit me to briefly state that in hia opening remarks he tries to explain the position he took up at the recent election of dayman for St. Kilda. It is rather amusing to study the audacity of “T. Caddie ” in rushing into print. It only serves to patently expose the key to hia principles in running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Can “T.C.” explain satisfactorily how he took charge of a requisition signed by eighty-four electors, and in his own words gladly presented it in open Council, but in committee betrayed the trust reposed in him by declining to vote in favor of my appointment, thereby ignoring the express wishes of the people who placed him in his present position? He now regrets the appointment taking place in committee, but readily joins in voting in that direction. The- requisitionists assumed that the inspector had performed his duties in a creditable manner to himself, the ratepayers, and the Council. The Council were never mertioned in the words of the requisition. The ratepayers, he adds, had no conception of the feeling which existed between the inspector and the Council long ago ; but in another fiortion of his letter he contracts this ong period into eighteen months. He might have stated the reason, which was simply because three-fourths of the business was done in committee. Reference is made to Cr Gore. Had that gentleman been in the district, I presume the appointment would have been made in my faver. I demand T. Caddie to publicly apologise at an early date for his attempt to damage my character by saying that a mist surrounded it, otherwise legal proceedings will follow. — I am, etc., James M'Donald, South Dunedin, July 22.