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Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 3, Issue 133, 7 April 1860, Page 2

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To the Editor of the Hawke's Bay Herald,

Sic, — The discussion which took place in the Council upon the several items of the Estimates, and <he report of which appeared in your paper last veek, is a very great curiosity. I refer, particularly, to the items for the public works.

TJie high-actioned Provincial Engineer gets £450' a year passed without note or comment. This fortunate party always reminds one of Mr. Pecksniffs horse, remarkable for its tremendous action and slow pace. One would think, from the salary he gets and the great care with which the Superintendent protects and cherishes him, like somo rare plant of exotic growth, that there might be traced in the lineaments of his face a most decided" promise of beating Brunei and Stephenson into fits presently, and do it cheap too. . Then comes the raise of £50 a year for the Engineer's Clerk ; upon which Mr. Ormond very properly remarks that the Superintendent ought to provide that interesting young man with an increase of work as well as of pay. Whereat Mr. Colenso's indignation becomes great, and he asserts for a fact that the said clerk is, like himself, a perfect miracle ; and that he performs such prodigies of work once a month, exhausts himself so completely by carrying about great weights of money (on horseback), and performing other gigantic feats oi strength for two or three days now and then, that Mr. Colenso's compassionate disposition can stand it no longer, and he insists that the young man should be allowed the remaining 26 or 27 days of the month to rest and recover from the direful effects of his extraordinary efforts, so as to be ready for another struggle at the appointed time. No one in that council or any where else, except Mr. Colenso, would talk such outrageous nonsense as all this, before sensible men of business. 1 3 - ecollcct a time when the clerk of the roads used to carry over the Ueinataka Range sums of money quite as large as Mr La Serre has occasion to move about with, but nevertheless had sufficient strength left to return to his ordinary office duties from 10 till 4 o'clock, after having got rid of the burdensome cash ; and it \va3 not considered by any means a remarkable feat, either, in those days. However, it would be a pity to work such a nice young man a3 the Hawke's Bay road clerk too hard, lest, peradventure, he be spoiled. He is a curiosity, there can be no doubt about that.

We next come to the estimates for the surveys. Mr. Ormond (economical fellow, that Ormond, I should like to know him) suggests that the field allowance of the surveyors be cut off. He says he thinks it is seed which produce no crop, and ought, accordingly, not to be sown. Mr. Colenso thinks so too ; only, unfortunately, the government have entered into a kind of contract with certain surveyors, and cannot well get out of it. Every session the affairs of the Survey Department afford a sqvp. of Feast of Lanterns to the members of the Council, during which they revel in the supreme luxury of incessant growling ; and amongst other amusements provided for the occasion, they turn out Mr. Tiffen, and have an examination match over him. I'm told its rare sport. And then, that being concluded, they have a little rifle practice at the assistants j and in short divert themselves amazingly. And amongst other bits of fine fun, there is the having a day's run with the draughtsmen and Bupers; altogether making up two or three days of excellent entertainment.

I don't doubt but that it is very great recreation to the Council to get bewildered by Mr. Tiffen's returns and rendered hopelessly unconscious by his astonishing and mysterious hints about what could be done if they got some thorough-bred professionals (made as nearly as possible after the pattern afforded by the Provincial Engineer and ditto ditto of Public Works) ; but I can tell them with tolerable certainty that Mr. Tiffen's returns are all bosh from beginning to end, and that there is not one item contained therein upon the accuracy of ■which the slightest dependance ought to be placed. There is not half the work that was done last year returned in that sheet. And further that if they question the propriety of paying this present batch of surveyors fairly, it will be difficult to get any at all, much less jewels of rare price, diamonds of the first water, such as Mr. Tifien vaguely hints might be induced to come here for £300 a year, if the government can but Bucceed in pointing out the advantages of the situation in a sufficiently seductive light.

That convivial party, .Hitchings, with a depth of idea and profundity of research which is marvellous in the extreme, detects the possibility of a horrible practice arising out of the chief surveyor getting £1 a day for field, allowance. The chief surveyor, according to the learned doctor, would take advantage of this £1 a day privilege to go and play marbles with his assistants in the field, instead of minding his business in the office. Clever fellow, that Hitchings, shrewd man — shews a great knowledge of the world, does Hitchings— and, in fact, by the acuteness of his observations, one would be led to suppose that if he got the same chance as he considers is offered by this allowance to the chief surveyor, he would make the most of it.

Mr. Colenso having shewn so much sympathy with the sufferings of the clerk of the roads, might expend, -without appearing in the least ostentatious a littleof that same milk of human kindness with which he is so completely saturated, upon the unfortunate pork and damper ' fed surveyors^ That said superabundant and delicious fluid one may almost, imagine iB gushing at this very moment in jets from the top of the worthy Auditor's hat, and running in little lively limpid streams out of the very heels of the. auditorial boots for

the benefit of mankind in general, and of road clerks of long suffering dispositions in particular. In fact, as that amiable public officer walks, or^lS* rather runs along, with the tails of his coat floating gracefully in the breeze far astern of him, like flags of peace, he seems to'scattera kind of refreshing verdure upon the path whereon his benevolent feet tread ; the very grasshoppers, one can fancy, chirp with renewed vigour as he glides so smoothly along 1 , and cry with one accord, "Truth prevails, and virtue is triumphant. There goes a good man and no spiders about him." But be all that as it may, it is a self evident fact that, as Mr. Colenso has given decided evidence of his profound knowledge of what work ought to be done by the surveyors, and how that body ought to be paid, he should at once be made chief surveyor, and as he is troubled with rheumatism (so I gather from some of his interesting tracts) he would in his venerated person, make an excellent example, — sitting in a calico tent with the wind S.S.E. and a iieavy rain. Oh, what a prolonged and piercing howl would echo through the Council Hall next session about the hardships of the surveyor's life, the dreadful sufferings of" those poor wandering children, of Ishmael, and the awful state in which they live j and mark what a glorious, what a noble self sacrificing stand would that disinterested member make in favour of an increased field allowance.

If, when the Superintendent passed such a verdict upon the survey department as to say that it was in a very bad state, he had added a rider to it to the effect that that lamentable state of things was to be mainly attributable to Mr. Tiffen's bad management, lie would have been about right, and no one would have doubted him for a moment. If a department is badly managed, who the deuce is to be responsible but the head of it s I should like to know. By Jove, Sir, the government of Hawke's Bay is arriving at some novel notions. The Superintendent acta something after the Chinese fashion : if anything goes wrong in the public departments of that wonderful empire, they begin by punishing -with the utmost severity the unfortunate subs, but are exceedingly cautious of saying too much about the Mandarins. But then that is not much to be wondered at when you consider that those Celestial people begin their dinner with the dessert and end it with the soup. I am, &c, Diogenes. Napier, April 2, 1860.