DEVONPORT WATER SUPPLY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9015, 30 March 1888, Page 3

DEVONPORT WATER SUPPLY.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, With reference to Mr. Knox's letter in your issue of Monday last, I will ask permission to state shortly the following facts—l. The well experiments were resolved upon by the Borough Council on a report brought up by the Waterworks Committee, which report was adopted by a large majority of the Council, on the motion of the Mayor, seconded by Mr. R. Cameron. The Waterworks Committee, 1 may state, consisted of all the members of the Council, with the Mayor as chairman. 2. The tender for sinking the well was accepted on January 17 by the Council, my resignation as a member of the Streets and Works Committee having been sent in a week previously. I therefore could not have had the direction of the foreman of works and his men while the latter were engaged in the sinking of the well. 3. In my lasb letter my contention was, not that Mr. Knox was responsible for the pumping and sinking experiments, but that in conducting these operations by order of the Council the work was so mismanaged as to cost about twice as much as it need have done ; and I deny that I ever in any way interfered with his direction of the work in question. 4. The use of the so-called expensive meters for testing the quantity of water was decided upon by a resolution passed by a majority of the council. 5. With regard to the cost of these experiments I have it on the authority of the mayor that the total cost was under £200. From the foregoing it will be seen that it is hardly fair that I should be saddled with the whole reoponsibility of the well experiments, seeing that everything that took place with reference to that matter was done with the concurrence of the whole of the councillors, with the exception of two or at most three of their number. I have no wish to continue this controversy, and have made the above statement in order that the public may not be misled as to the real facts of the case.—l am, &c., Edward Bartley.