HASTINGS MAYORALTY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 99, 8 April 1911, Page 7

HASTINGS MAYORALTY.

THE CAMPAIGN OPENED. MR. THOMPSON ADDRESSES THE ELECTORS. Mr. T. J. Thompson, a candidate for the Hastings mayoralt.v addressed an overflowing meeting in the Hastings Council Chambers last evning. Mr. George Ebbett occupied the. chair, and in introducing the speaker, said they were facing a critical period in the progress - of the town, ami were on the eve of spending a large sum of money. It was a time when they needed i man at the head of civic affairs with practical experience and e.ndowed with caution, more especially in the expenditure on the loan works. If the electors considered these qualifications on the day of election, he felt sure that their choice would be a wise one. He' asked his hearers to put aside their petty likes and dislikes, and approach the matter in a broadminded manner. Mr. Thompson was received with applause, and commenced by saying that up to about three weeks i ago he had no more intention of contesting the election than >r flying. He had had his turn In, the position of mayor, and after: : being out of office for two yearsi he did not feel like embarking on I public life again. A few weeks' ! a ?o a petition had been circular-; ; ised without his knowledge, end' had been signed by a large num-; j ber of burgesses. The petition! 'had subsequently been presented; ! to him by a deputation of ten! burgesses, and it was owing to! the arguments put forward on that' ! occasion, after he had consult d I his better half, that he had 1 changed his mind and decided to | stand. If he was placed at the; j head of the poll he could onlypromise to devote his talentsand) , time to promoting the best interests of the borough. In the first 1 place, he wished to congratulate the present Mayor and Council on inducing the ratepayers to sanc- ( tion such a large loan for the improvement of Hastings. Old resi-. : dents would remember that in ■ years past his aim had been to raise a loan for sewer construction. He did not consider the ratepay-! , ers would vote for a loan of such; a large amount as £85,000, but thought support of a loan for; £30,000 would be forthcoming.; When in office as mayor he had' , proposed going to the ratepayers for a loan of £30.000. and succeeded in having his proposal carried, i but in a>half-hearted way. A pub-: ; lie meeting of ratepayers was call-’-cd to discuss the proposal, and ■ some of the members of the coun-; ! cil had got up on the platform andj ! opposed : t. Consequently it was. : no wonder that the ratepayers re-; ; fused to sanction the loan. Continuing, Mr. Thompson said; , he had read of a society that was > composed of workers and fault-’ , finders, but although he might; j have occasion to criticise the ac- . tions of the present council, he did ; not do so in any carping spirit. In. . asking for their support, he considered it was only right to outline! ! the policy he was likely to pursue ' if elected, and was backed up by : the new council, and he asked his ; hearers to give the same consider-! ation to the choice of councillors ; as that of a mayor, because unless' ‘ they had a good set of level-head-, j ed councillors, it was absolutely ! impossible for the mayor, no mat-, | ter who be might be, to carry out i work of anv importance. ’ BOROUGH STAFF. i Some time ago, before he had j thoroughly gone into the question. • he was of opinion the borough staff ) required reorganising, but as a ■ result of his investigation he did not consider, as far as the office 1 was concerned, that there was any I room for retrenchment. He had I obtained a statement of the ; amount spent by the Napier ! Council in this direction, and ! compared with Hastings, it was 'as follows -Napier : Town Clerk ! £4OO. assistant ’ £250. collector £3OO, clerk £155, typist £«0. valuer : £2OO, borough engineer £3OO, over- . seer £.‘150. three assistants £450: reckoning on the loan works lasting two years, this amount doubled equalled £5272, and added the engineer’s commissions. £2O2S. made a total of £7201 in an expenditure of £!26.<h.h>. The Hastings figures were as follows: —Town Clerk £:joo. overseer £3oo. assistant clerk £126. sewer assistant £150; total £s76 ; loan works extending over tu<> tears £1752, added to engineer s niiinissions. £2750. iiia<!e a grand total of C4s<i2 in an expenditure of a loan of £83.000 Continuing, he said that he von>idered Hastings compared more favourably with Napier in the matter of office expenditure. In connection with the carrying out of the loan works, there were a number of m°n employed at 12 yer day. but until he saw what C ev were doing he was not pre pared to say whether they were

earning their money or not, but f' he was elected it would be part of his duty to go round and see that such was the case. ROADS AND GRAVEL PITS. For about seven years, whilst he was a member of the council, he had been continually harping for Better roads. Late arrivals r. Hastings had no idea what the roads w-*re like about 12 years ago. Heretaunga road from Frimley to Havelock was like a shingle bed. He had always advocated the necessity of miproving the methods adopted in repairing the roads, and after many years of battling he succeeded in getting the council to obtain metal from the Te Mata quarries, and the result had been a great success. During the, past three years some of the roads had gone back, but he did not blame the present council for this because they were aware that it would be useless to metal the roads and then have to open them up shortly after for sewerage operations. The saving thus effected had enabled the council to almost completely wipe out the overdraft, but it would require considerable expenditure to put the roads that were opened up n the same condition as they were two or three years ago. He considered it was absolutely a waste of money to cart metal from the borough quarries and to try to make a success of the work. The road question had been before the council for many years, and it had been finally decided to purchase a quarry of 20 acres at Bridge Pa for £4OO, and this was an invaluable asset to Hastings. He thought it was a great folly to cart metal with horse teams, if they wished to do so economically. He would advocate the purchase of a stonecrusher with proper elevators, and the metal could then be carted by a traction engine for half the cost. He thought the new council should consider the suggestion. TRAMS. The question of trams was one he had considered for many years, and in view’ of the Government’s promise to harness Waikaremoanu, he thought it would be folly to spend a large sum of money on an electric system. But if the people of Hastings wanted a tram service (which he very much doubted) he would be in favour of a service run by motor engines, which could be installed at one tithe of the cost of an electric service. He would not advise the burgesstf., to saddle themselves with a heavy expenditure. but if a syndicate offered to instal a service he would be quite agreeable, providing the council made provision for taking over the plant, etc., at a reasonable cost. PERMANENT ENGINEER. The question of the appointment of a permanent engineer had caused a great deal of discussion. At the inception of the loan proposals. if the right man could have been procured, he believed theap pointment would have meant a great saving. The present council had an agreement with Mr. Climie (in whom he had every confidence), to carry out the various works on commission, and they would have to pay him whether he carried out the works or not. The appointment of a permanent engineer at the present stage would simply be making Mr. Climie a present of his fee. McGAFFIN’S CONTRACT. Referring to the above, he said the present council had entered into a contract with Mr. R. McGaffin for the supply of Monier pipes, anl he considered they had made a serious mistake in making the contract before they nacl decided on the sort of pipes to be used. Mr. McGaffin had been asked to supply .£5OOO worth of Monier pipes, and now claimed something over £2OOO for breach of agreement. He (the speaker) did not claim to know’ much about the matter. but he considered if they settled the claim with £lOOO they would be lucky. In connection with the election, some of his opponents were continually pointing to the practical men on the present council, and in this connection he would refer them to Mr. McGaffin’s contract. Mr. Hallett, the overseer. had outlined a scheme for sewerage extension, but some of the council and also a number of burgesses were not satisfied with it, and desired to call in outside advice. Mr. Climie was consulted, and both he and Dr. Frengley. District Health Officer. who happened to be here at the same time, recommended the use of smaller pipes for certain parts, and on this advice the contract let to McGaffin for Monier pipes was cancelled, it being reckoned that a saving of £3OOO would be effected thereby. Tenders were then called for pipes, and Crs. Styles and Garnett were appointed a committee to assist the overseer to draw up specifications. No objections were made to the specifications. When the tender* came , before the council, die pre.-ent mayor was attending rhe Menu ;•

pal Conference in Wellington, and at a meeting the following day of the sub-committee, of which Cr. ’Garnett was chairman, the tender of Mr. McGaffin for concrete pipes was accepted. Soon after Cr. Garnett, who was one of his opponents, and who had been referred to as a practical man, had condemned the concrete pipes anJ said that the specifications were wrong. The speaker asked if this was playing the game fair. Shortly after. Mr. Sollitt had been appointed at £lO per month to see that McGaffin used proper material in the manufacture of pipes. On August 18th a committee had been set up to arrange with Mr. Sollitt to see that every pipe was inspected before it left the contractor’s yard. Mr. Sollitt had explained that this was not necessary, but if he was required to do the work, which would necessitate working very long hours, he would need £350 for his services. This sum was agreed to. but soon after this the council thought Mr. Sollitt was getting too much, and the appointment was cancelled. . SINS OF COMMISSION AND OMISSION. For the past few days there had occasionally been appearing in the press letters signed “Elector,” in which the writer recounted the sins of commission and omission of the speaker during his previous , term of office. Mr. Thompson said that if he was any judge, “Elector” was a gentleman who had been keeping Hastings in the right path for many years.' - (Laughter.) He had been advocating various schemes for the town he advised everybody, and knew everyone’s business except his own. One of the sins that he (the speaker) was accused of was the purchase of the Straker w aggon. This was the pet scheme of Mr. Cassin in and out of season, despite several rebuffs. On November 7th, 1907, the council received a letter from Mr. Norman Heath, of Wellington, stating the waggon had been placed on the free list, and was then considerably cheaper. On November 21 st the Public Works Committee had recommended that the purchase be shelved, and the question was shelved. On March sth, 1908, the road overseer recommended the purchase of a road grader, street sweeper, and a Straker waggon, and he (the speaker) had previously opposed the latter, because he had examined a waggon in Christchurch, and from his practical experience he considered the waggon could not be worked economically unless they had a number of them and had them properly elevated so that they coull be loaded without delay. But on the overseer’s recommendation he let the. council decide the question on their own responsibility. The overseer’s report was referred to the Public Works Committee at the time, but no decision was thrived at. Later on, however, it was decided, on the motion of Crr. Cassin and Fowler, to purchase the waggon, the cost being £899.

Another blunder that was levelled against him was that he purchased the Fernhill quarry without the authorisation of the Council. He wished to point out. however, that about this time Mr. Dudley Hill was allowing them to take the metal from the Fernhill quarry at a royalty of 3d or 4d per yard. Some hundreds of yards of this was tried on Heretaunga street between Nelson street and King street, and he asked if the condition of that road to-day did not justify the use of the Fernhill metal. About this time a number of sections at Fernhill were advertised for sale, including the quarry site. He had no time to consult the Council in a body, but several of the Councillors and himself had inspected the site. They obtained the quarry for the small sum of £23, a very sound investment, and he contended that lif the metal was not used for another ten years the money had been ! well spent, and in a few years the land would be worth five times its present value. His action had subsequently been approved of by the Council. ' ABATTOIRS.

Another question on which “Elector” had been taking him to task was the abattoirs. He (the speaker) had only had 25 years’ experience at his trade, and knew nothing about it. (Laughter.) “Elector,” who had no experience, knew all about it. It had been said that because he was a butcher he was not favourable to the abattoirs, but he would point out that he assisted to establish the abattoirs and was one of a committee whicn selected the site and decided on the buildings. During the past three years the abattoirs had been run at a profit of about £6OO, which was paid into the general account and used for roads, etc. He, however, considered that municipal slaughtering was not a success. He had nothing against the men employed at the ' abattoirs, they carried out their | work in a proper manner. Under

the present conditions, and during the present weather, the stock was brought 24 hours before killing, and at 7 o’clock every morning, butchers had to give their orders for meat wanted on the following day. The slaughtermen were anxious to get their work done and finished as soon as possible. Under private slaughtering arrangements, the meat was killed in the afternoon, hung up over night, and came into the shop* in good condition in the morning. Another objection to municipal slaughtering was that the small butcher had to pay hard cash for what he could very well do himself. In the butchering trade all hands WcH’e kept busy in the morning, but in the afternoons they had nothing to do, and if private slaughter was allowed, it could be done by the butchers themselves in their spare time. He defended his action in opposing the appointment of a Government Inspector at- the abattoirs by saying that he did not think it was part of the Council's business to provide a billet for a man with a Government salary, because in the event of a dispute the Inspector would be more than likely to side with the Department. He wished it to be distinctly understood, however, that he held the greatest respect for both the previous manager, Mr. Rait, and the present officer, Mr. Short, both of whom he considered did their duties in a conscientious manner.

He (the speaker) had been asked what he had done during his previous term of office. In answer to this, he would say, that although no standing work of any importance had been commenced, a good deal had been done, of which the following were a few items: asphalting 66 chains of main street; asphalting four miles of footpaths; concrete channelling 3 miles ; purchase of horses, carts and plant ; £llOO had been spent yearly on roads ; building of magazine; concrete tank at railway crossing; i erection of public urinal; implement shed; fire bell tower; purchase of quarries at Fernhill and Bridge pa; road-making plant Straker waggon (laughter); tar boiler; plans and tracings of the borough; paying for report on a sewerage and water supply, and numerous other things necessary for the running of a borough. With regard to the erection of a water tank at the railway crossing, he had supported the spending of a moderate sum on this work. In this undertaking the Council had been assisted by Messrs. W. Nelson and J. N. Williams, who gave £5O each, so that if he (the speaker) had been guilty of a blunder, he was in very good company. CONCLUSION. He wished to say in conclusion that he was only coming forward as a public duty, and if they thought he was worthy of their support, they could exercise their rights on April 26 ip his favour. He had no axe to grind, and his interests were the burgesses’ interests. (Applause.) QUESTIONS. In reply to questions, he stated that the present loan money was not sufficient to carry out the channelling and kerbing scheme as originally intended; a further loan would have to be obtained. The sitting Council were not to blame if the present loans were not sufficient. They were only guided by the engineer’s estimates. On the motion of Messrs. R. W. Jones and J. A. Gallagher, the following resolution was canied by the meeting .-—That a hearty vote of thanks be accorded Mr. Thompson for his able address, and this meeting has every confidence in him , as a fit and proper person to oc- | cupy the position of Mayor of Hast- ‘ ings. Mr. Thompson spoke for an hour and a quarter and had an attentive hearing.