PARNELL RETRENCHMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9036, 20 April 1888, Page 6

PARNELL RETRENCHMENT.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I am sorry to have aroused Captain D. H. McKenzie's ire, by my reply to " Onlooker's " letter. I admit that he is quite right in stigmatising the cutting down of Upper Manukau Road as a great piece of extravagance, as the work cost Parell about half the £713. But Captain McKenzie ought to know better than anyone else that this cutting-down was begun before I was elected a member of the Council. lam quite sure the Council would not have attempted to complete this work last year, at a time when they could hardly afford ie| if they had not received legal notice to go on with the work, and at the same time received legal advice from- their own solicitor. This is one of the acts and works I complained of in my previous letter. As this is one case amongst others, I contend that this legal knowledge ought to be obtained by the Town Clerk, and he ought to advise the Council of it before the work is commenced, or the contract signed, rather than that the Council should receive it from their solicitors after the work is either begun or completed. I might tell Captain McKenzie that town clerks in England are required to have all necessary legal knowledge of public works' Acts and corporation business. As regards the drainage, the collapse of the sewers last year, and the reconstruction and repairing of them, and at St. George's Bay, I should hardly call an extravagance, but rather a misfortune to Parnell. If these main sewers had been constructed of brick work, as I have heard that the borough engineers advised the Council to do at first, the Council would not have had to spend the remainder of the £713 last year. I think the decision of the Government Auditor was right about the trust money. I would like to remind Captain McKenzie that there was just as much opposition raised in the Council by the friends of the town clerk to the great retrenchment that was carried out last year. Mr. Editor, the unpleasant fact remains that Parnell is in debt, and unless we retrench, we shall not get out of our difficulties.—l am, &c., Parnell, April 17, 1888. -John Savage.