ANOTHER REPLY TO MR. FIRTH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9149, 3 September 1888, Page 6

ANOTHER REPLY TO MR. FIRTH.

Mr. Firth has forgotten or does nob understand the position. A few meetings since the finance committee recommended to the Council that the price for stonebreaking should be reduced to 3s 6d per yard, urging in support that metal could be freely purchased for 3s 3d and 3s per yard. If that recommendation had been carried the stonebreakers would have been retained. A majority of the Council thought otherwise, and by resolution fixed the price at 3s 9d per yard. The minority on the vote to dispense with the stonebreakers were among the majority who voted to pay 3s 9d, so that if the recommendation to dispense with the stonebreakers had been struck out, the Council must have paid 3s 9d until a formal resolution to rescind the resolution to pay 3s 9d had been carried. It is very well for Mr. Firth to pose as the friend of the work-ing-man, and urge the city to pay more for stonebreaking than it is worth. Such _ a practice will inevitably result in a charitable aid rate being levied upon the citizens in 1889. Mr. Firth, in the Assessment Court early in the year, declaimed loudly against the Council spending money unnecessarily. Did Mr. Firth, who poses as the friend of the working-man, ever give an hour of his time or £1 of his money to benefit the working-man Is he their friend when he fills his mill with machinery purposely made to dispense with the labour of the working-man ? Was he the friend of the working man and the opponent of unnecessary expenditure when with his voice and his influence he induced the Harbour Board to erect the wharf opposite his mill, and when he induced the Board at a cost of £700 to make the costly street leading from Queen-street Wharf to his mill ? Has that gentleman at any time neglected an opportunity to pose as the working man's friend and at the srme time secure some benefit for himself, and some cheap publicity. I feel he is not sincere in what he writes, although probably he does not himself see his want of sincerity. Instead of condemning the action of the Council in respect to the stonebreakers, he should uphold them for their manly action in declining to pay more for metal than a fair market price, and for their declining to accept the charge of old and unfortunate men, when there is a Charitable Aid Board whose special duty it is to take care of them, and to find them the employment that the Council are now doing. Apologising for the length of this letter, but I feel it necessary to write, because those who are not acquainted with Mr. Firth might accept his statements and views as correct. —I am, etc., An Old and an Interested Citizen.