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New Zealand Mail, Issue 867, 12 October 1888, Page 16

Several interesting subjects were touched on at Wednesday’smeeting of the Chamber of Commerce. The President, Mr J. H. Cock, delivered an excellent speech, taking a cheerful and favourable, while not unduly sanguine view of the improved prospects of the Colony. One point which received a good deal of the Chamber’s attention was the attitude taken up by the Government with regard to the Post Office clock. That attitude is the reverse of satisfactory or creditable. After distinctly giving a deputation to understand that the clock would be erected if the City Council and Harbour Board again, contributed L3OO toward the cost, and after giving an explicit promise to the Mayor to the same effect, the Government now appear determined to back o ut of their promise very shabbily. As a matter of common justice the Government ought to bear the whole cost of replacing the clock, seeing that they (or at least their predecessors), through their neglect to insure or to take reasonable precautions, were responsible for the loss of the former clock, toward which the city contributed £3OO. But surely the least they could do, in common fairness and decency, is to replace the clock on the same terms as before. We hope that no time will be lost in arranging for a large and influential deputation to wait on the Government, and urge the just claims of the city in this matter.