THE BOROUGH INSPECTOR

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 215, 25 August 1927, Page 4

THE BOROUGH INSPECTOR

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Contrary to the opinion of Cr. M. Johnson, large numbers of citizens are decidedly of opinion that your earlier correspondent was, generally speaking, perfectly correct when he said the appointment of Ml Fawcett met with the approval oi he citizens of Hastings. 'There may ‘>e exceptions, and, after all. who, holding the position of Mr. Fawcett and discharging his duties fairly, and fearlessly, could be without enemies 9 If he hadn't, it would be plain evidence he was not doing his duty, because he has all sorts of unreasonable people to dealt with. I have spoken to the inspector only once, and that was when he reprimanded me for an inadvertent breach of the traffic laws, but be was perfectly fan about it.

Mr. Johnson indicates his hostility to Mr. Fawcett very clearly, and seeing that he in his position as councillor may frequently be sitting in judgment on Mr, Fawcett, can von imagine anything more unfortunate than that Mr. Johnson should ex press publicly his prejudice and antagonism to the inspector. Mr. Johnson gibes nt your correspondent for not signing his name—if MrJohnson persists in writing letters like this, wouldn’t it be better if he followed the example of your corre spondent? There was recently a good deal of antagonism about the good works of various mayors and councils, and much stress was laid on the clean balance-sheets of recent years. That is easily explained. Former councils attempted far too much out of revenue—the present council and ‘he last borrowed for these purposes, and they will go down in history as the councils who added more to the publicdebt of the borough than any previous council, and probably more than any other two councils together. Besides that every fee payable to the council has been increased, and in some cases doubled vid trebled. If you want the approval of the plans of even a four.roomed cottage, you will find you pay for it at least twice, and probably three times, as much as you did five or six years ago We read of great improvements at Cornwall Park. An expert brought from Christchurch to advise on all manner of things that could well be left alone for time—more expenditure on the Assembly Hall and the theatre (the latter closed for a fortnight or alterations and cleaning with consequent loss of revenue) and a substantial increuse on the rates The council seem to have money to burn, but in these difficult times there are many who would be glad to see economy exercised and an equally substantial reduction in the rate'.' instead of the increase, would have been most acceptable to many rat" payers struggling to make ends meet •—I am, etc. , SCRUTATOR. Hastings, 25/8/27.