MIRAMAR.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4426, 5 August 1901, Page 4

MIRAMAR.

Signs are not. wanting that those who have hitherto favoured the City Conn* oil’s proceedings in the matter of tho suggested purchase of the Miramar property are weakening in their advocacy and are no w prone to. admit that a grav* mistake has been made. Our evening contemporary, Which has been the chief aider and abettor of the proposal, has now changed its tone. On Saturday it confessed editorially that it was “open to question whether it would not have been wiser to take * ratepayers’ poll before the present Bill was introduced. We have all along held that the Counml began at the wrong end, its tactics con« veying the impression that there was a design to commit the citizens to the scheme in advance, and it is gratifying to find that this view of the matter is being recognised as correct. As the "Post” further remarks, “tha main object of the Bill is not to empower the Council to purchase, hut to define the uses to which the laud is to be put if the ratepayers sanction by a poll the raising of the purchase money.” That being so, there is surely no justi* ficaticn for calling upon the Legislature to pass a measure which, in tho words of the member in charge, would be “ad much waste paper.” It is most discourteous to Parliament to ask it to legist late for the management of an estate which has not been purchased, and the acquisition ol which is not at all likely to be sanctioned by Wellington ratepayers. It is refreshing, in this conneoe tion, to find the “Postil lecturing tho City Council, which, it declares, “has shillyshallied for a considerable time, and has shown a want of business aptitude in the manner of presenting its scheme to Parliament and to the rate* payers. For some reason or other it has acted in a half.hearfed ; way, ealeu* dated to breed distrust of its own faith in its proposals.” If for “its proposals,” we substitute the proposals of tho “Evening Post” the full humour of tho situation will be apparent; for, accord* ing to all appearances, the scheme under dismission is that of the “Evening Post,” and that journal must take tho chief responsibility of creating tho Frankenstein which it is now doing vto best to destroy. All that is wanted ta complete the “debacle” of the Miramar party is for the City Council to “round”' upon the member for the city who in« troduced the Bill, and who, by his personalities, unwarranted insinuations and denial of information, did much to con* demn the measure to the fate that paW pably is in store for it.