THAT £l000.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 806, 22 January 1903, Page 3

THAT £looo.

(To the Editor Gisborne Times.)

Sir,—l was pleased to notice that Uic Borough Council did not altogether jump at the chance to offer anyone a thousand pounds of the ratepayers’ monev to any one in such a. way as Mr W'. H. Cooper proposes. It should he enough to put the Council at. once on ils guard that anyone, at such a time, should think of asking a thousand pounds for information that could by no possibility he conlined to one man. It is impossible for such a wonderful stream to have been kept secret. If Mr Cooper had as good a thing as he claims he could pick up a certain fifty pounds from the Council any day, without acting on the thousand pounds idea, which will be no use to him once the two main obstructionists of Waihirerc have been given their quietus. Does anyone consider that to give such a sum for information that should he gladly given free, would he to saddle the place for ever with a tax for interest of nearly a pound a_ week. It is, of course, a fine chance for the obstructionists to make some more gallery play in the hope of defeating the decision of the ‘people —they would apparently wait till the bay is shoaled up before they would favor anything that would help on Waihirerc, though the/ take such a strange position in regard to condemned .sources. _ The time has arrived when the Conn -..l should let the people know whether they intend trying to get a water supply or not. iSuelt another summer oi. dry season as the last would be quite enough to drive people crazy. But no thousand pounds to anyone claiming to have knowledge of the whereabouts of a sufficient supply and refusing to disclose the source except for an enormous sum of money. I'or my jiart I would sooner join (lie obstructionists than hear of such a sum being spent in that way. A parting word; Cr Miller's statement as to the obstructionists’ preference to the historic Waikauae as against Waihirerc, may have been meant as a joke, but in grim earnest 1 repeat that there is a more suitable supply, counting the ■ cost, obtainable from thcWaikanae i than from Waimata.—l am, etc., P. B. P,