DUNEDIN LETTER.

Mt Benger Mail, 4 March 1914, Page 1

DUNEDIN LETTER.

(From the Tuapeka Times.)

1 hope you noticed the lesult «i the | Uuuediu Draia&ge Board election for, . apparently, tti • daily Tress of what I Mayor Scott used to icrm " our fair city ' did no:. if you turn up the editorial page of Utago's Uudy I nines aud ihe livening -Illuminator ior Friday 2Uth, you will look in vain ior any mention oi a gentleman by the name of Siuiull. In one you will hud menlion ot the Chairman of the Work*; Committee, and in the other you will iLnd some mention of our old friend Lull Bt Icher, and in each you will lind some verj true and very irrelevant and very odd comments on the apathy of the ratepayers iu uot rolling up in their terns of thousands to —well, to do what ? Candidly, t uon v know and the pupeis themselves do not know. The results would, in all reasonable piouability, have been exactly the same only that the successful men would have larger uiajontie*and certainly no sane man could wish them to be other than they were. Why, then, this appalling sileace : Why this deploraolu lgnoraaw cl ft gjcutleinun named 6man . sviiy no reierence to the cause of the order m wbien ihe victors stood ? Siniplj this aud nothing more. The papers fell in—one oi them badly. ,Tiiey assumed mat | the gentleman named Small vvas going down and out. 1 didn't. 1 voted for j SmalTßelcher-Arkle. Not that there was anything extraordinary in my so j voting, except, perhaps, that it was the j first tune in twenty year- that 1 have voted on the winning side—in this or j any election, i rather pride rnyseli on ! the fact that 1 almost invariably vole lorloseis. But a- a matter ot his- ' toiy 1 was told the names and oruer of the winner.- at ten o'clock in the morning. 1 happened to meet Mr Ismail. " Well, v.uat is it to lie'." i asKed. " Myself, Belcher, andArkle,' he answered quietly. " Good," J replied, "in that order ':" " \es, ' ;he said, and as dames .-mall is not a I boasting, loud longued, iussy bu.-y-Oody, 1 knew that ihe light was wonBut, you ask, why those mighty silences in the iiiday editorial-? And 1 answer in the words of the late lord Salisbury, " they put their money m the wrong horse." The Press of Dunedin has a oathetic beUef in the superiority of knowledge ani brains possessed by experts i; nd, to do it justice, the expert is better than the average Harbour, or Dramage Board, or Lily Louncil member. But James Small is nut an average man. on the lmaucial sue he has no equal although be has several critics who think they know as much aud more. The difference between James Small and the Smaller fry is that they accept the ligures as supplied them by the oihee while Jam's small gets his own. Where small fails is that he cannot stand on his feet and hit '-nek. ihe present Lord Mayor ot Sydney told uie that as a linaneial critic on paper small had no e ,uul, and tha'. in.- manner and method oi on paper were un-urpus-.d but, and he shook his head, " 1 could never get him to stand on nil legs and hit em back "

lleuce the U.U.T. fell iu wli-u it »nppolled Lngineer Anderson as against small. The rat' payers linn d dov>u tn. Andersou party and put small on lop. Ihe U.U.I, and K.S. opposed Small when he protested persistently against a payment of £3UUU odd to the tramway contractors. Happily lor the em/em-, the city solicitors support d Small mid opposed the payment. Therefore the} won and the contractors backed down aud the paper which never inserted a letter from small unless it was accompanied by an editorial said -well, I forget. 1 know.l laughed. And small's reward? Vnc gets angry as one recalls it ; lie was drisen to retire from the Council a little later over as shoddy a trick as our shuddy misrepresentatives could invent. 1 know the inner hu-.to.y of that affair, too, but there are some talcs 1 never tell out oi school.

Uf course they kept James Small on tho Drainage Board—the citizens Know his worth there, lei, forsooth, when ho ventured on some mild criticism oi a jumblo of uareliable tigures that had been submitted to it, and when their author made an ass oi himself ami " •Jimmy " quietly spanked him the Press and a majority oi the Hoard not only coneiuded the expert must be right and that Jimmy must be wrong [" oi course he is, he ain't am ' expert ' is he 'I"), but they called in, or approved the calling in, oi two more experts to say so. Alas! the experts never said anything of the kind—as, honest professional men they couldn't very well do that—and ior a biiet moment one or two of us looked for a few compliments to the non-expert exposer oi expert extravagances. Do not bo alarmed—we did not get them. Wc had a member named iiancock giving us a curious Jlancoekian version of history (James .Small, he said, had " attacked " the secretary), and we had one, two, three and as many more as you like apoiogies from the bccretary and we had the Press-dear old fourth estate —solemnly putting on its cap and bells and wagging its head at the wicked criminal (all criminals are not wicked; James Small, much as the bloated capitalist might, or would look at the new ollice boy whom he had caught with his hand in the shop till. .And the next day we had the election a*J the result of the pollSmall, Belcher, Arkle with Hancock hi the soup spluttering—and the very next veriest day we had the editorials neither of which knew there was su>:h a wicked, bad, prying person as Jam s Small in existence. Moral : The imin who serves the public faithfully ai.d ably for nothing is an ass. But the story is still unfinished. Among the members of the Board wLo believed that Jameß Small, not being an expert must be wrong, was Dr Fulton, an amiable gentleman of whom I know nothing

but good. But being in the svrong at the jump, starling from false premises to to speak, the farther he travelled and the longer he stayed on the road the deeper ho got into the mire. 1 heard a whisper that the doctor had triumphantly described the expert's report as a " complete vindication." j V\hen 1 heard this 1 felt pained and wanted to prescribe for the doctor. But I only said : " lias he read it V" | " .Not he," came the answer, " and he wouldn't understand it if he had." I'" liule Britannia " 1 murmured and : went on with nry work (1 was engaged at the moment in changing a shilling for pennies for hospital Saturday. When, therefore, the names went up the amiable doctor had a sudden but happily brief attack of infantile paralysis (the 1 ' ;* fashionable medical scare j, and - sauit. lnslei the iigures ■ ollicer. " lis . Lis accounts for the milk in the couooHui My name would have been top not fourth had the ratepayers only done i heir duty. There are tens of thous-1 ands of 'em, all thinking as 1 think, aud the beggars haven't the price of a ear fare among em to come and back me up at the polls. lint they shall smart for it. I'll pay them out. I I hey are not to make such a di plorabje mess of things for nothing. It they will not vote either intelligently or unintelligently, and prefer a b- ; ly the latter, thev must Buffer."

And they did, we did, lie did and everybody did. Ihe amiabl' doctor thought deeply, and when a doctor things deeply it is bad for hi.- patients. For five days and nights tie communed with nature, lie took lo»g solitary walk.-. 11- climbed I'lagstaii. lie motored to Portobello along the Sewer road and defied the regulations. lie lard his head, he smote his, brow, and, finally, he cried "Eureka!"

Then he gathered his martial cloak around him, strode into the Board Itoom, sat with lowering brow, heard tlie new mi rubers ilia! ha ! | congratulated, rose to his feet and threw an w- elope on the table. Bless us," cried the Chairman, what's that ''."

I'ne doctor paused for the correct Iramatic effect, then having got it, lix «i the Board with a glance and said : " My resignation :"

It was too bad of the doctor. The Board eveiy one of 'em- collapsed ond he had to attend to each one professionally. Was it a pui up job?