HALSWELL ROAD BOARD.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXV, Issue 7862, 18 May 1886, Page 6

HALSWELL ROAD BOARD.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sib, —In your issue of May 13 appears a letter from “ Halswell Ratepayer No. 2,” to which I trust you will allow me to reply. In my previous letters I made a number of plain, emphatic statements, concerning which "No. 2 ” says, “ I cannot allow such gross perversions of facts to remain uncontradicted.” But he does not make the smallest attempt to contradict the smallest detail of any one of my statements. He says he cannot allow them to go uncontradicted, hut does so. When a man thus flatly contradicts himself to his very face, what weight can we attach to his statements about others P His reference to the clauses of various Acts is not a very valuable contribution to the present disr cussion. It may be legal to insert important notices about elections in papers which do not circulate in the district, and not in papers which do, but it is not just. It may be legal to advertise that an election will take place under certain clauses of certain Acts, but it is not reasonable to suppose that every ratepayer has a copy of such Acts in his possession. The law may not require that notices respecting elections should be posted on the notice board outside Road Board offices in the absence of adequate advertising, but common sense does. As to our obtaining redress, I am aware that a petition has been lodged, but I have small hopes of any good resulting therefrom, and “ No. 2’s ” reference to this question is evidently a jeer at our helplessness ; the Returning-Oificer was compelled at the annual meeting to reluctantly admit that he had taken legal advice about the election, presumably in order to find out how far the ratepayers might be legally kept in the dark. “ No. 2’s ” joy at the fact " that the members of the Board are treating the matter with silent contempt/' merely shows that he has yet to learn the difference between “ silent contempt ” and "contemptible-silence.” The ratepayers are being treated with contempt, but that : is another thing altogether. I am aware that no complaint was lodged at the , annua] meeting against any individual 1 member of the Board, nor against the 1 Board collectively, but I am also aware ( that the Chairman closed the meeting as i soor as the accounts, were passed, that j I was one of several who voted | fo’ passing the accounts, in order ( that other matters might come on for j discussion (we won't be had like that [ again), amd that the Board, Clerk and i labour gang voted for the passing of the accounts, which meant the closing of the meeting and the flight of the Board. At the same time, I must say that I had no j complaint to make, and I am not aware ( Ihat anyone had any grievance, bar the c

election ; but ,dt would have been all the same if they had. I may state that lam not actuated by personal motives in writing, and that the constitution of the present Board has nothing whatever to do with the indignation at presentexisting throughout the district. Had an election taken place, in all probability a majority of the present Board would have been returned. The manner, however, in which they cling to their hy no means clean perch is not raising them in the estimation of the ratepayers, and we cannot all believe that mere love of office is solely actuating them. In his last paragraph, the wit of which is so excruciating and the tone so high, “No. 2 ” seeks to cause this controversy to take a personal turn. In this he will have no assistance from me. I may, however, state that neither of the gentlemen to whom he so tastefully refers, have had anything whatever to do with this or my previous letters. In conclusion, let me beg “No. 2,” or anyone else who may address you on this subject, to be good enough to contradict any single statement I have made. I defy him to make even a decent attempt at doing so.—l am, &c., HALSWELL EATEPATER.