TELEGRAMS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 858, 15 January 1879, Page 2

TELEGRAMS.

(PER PRESS ASSOCIATION). WELLINGTON. January 14. The Supreme Court was occupied to-day with a special jury case, in which William Henry Gollop, of Hawke's Bay, was the plaintiff, and E. Atchison, Superintendent of Police, Wellington, was the defendant. Mr. Travers, with Mr. Edwards, appeared for the" plaintiff'; and Mr. Buckley, with Mr. Stafford, for defendant. Plaintiff claimed L2OO as damages for a slanderous publication in terms of the following telegram : —" Wellington, April lGth, 1878. —Inspector Scully— Be Gollop's application for license. A robbery was committed at Pier Hotel here, about two years ago, by these men. One was convicted at the Supreme Court. Gollop, I believe, was implicated in the robbery, and I told him so. I have no reason to change my opinion. Subsequently he kept an hotel in* Nelson. I refer to the police those transactions which occured between himself and a Bank official. Gollop is not suited to hold a house. I have told him that I would oppose the application. T. Aitchison." The sending of the telegram was, after some evidence and long argument admitted, but the Chief Justice granted a nonsuit, on the ground that no express malice having been proved, the communication must be considered a privileged one.

DUNEDIN. January 14. The immigrants per Oamaru all met with ready engagements. Harvest hands, Ll9 to L2O for three months ; farm laborers, LI to LI 4s per week ; shepherds and ploughmen, LGO per annum ; the single girls, though not open for engagement until to-morrow, all found work, and the supply is not nearly equal to the demand. The tender of John Whitaker for the Waimea Plains railway has been accepted. The amount is L36,C25 14s Bd. This is for the permanent way, and does not include rails and sleepers, which are provided by the company, but laid by the contractor. The length of line is 35 miles, and the work is to occupy twelve months.

A man named Henry Richardson has been missing from the Cromwell district since Christmas Day. He was a shearer, and is supposed to have been drowned in the Clutha, going from Ardgowan to Kawarau stations.

At the inquest on the body of John Waldron, held at Ophir, a verdict was returned that deceased shot himself in the bowels when laboring under temporary insanity. Mrs. Waldron was unable to attend.

The Wakatip Mail has been informed that the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the charges made by Mr. H. J. Finn against Mr. Warden Stratford, have forwarded their report to the Government, and that the main charge of illegal arrest was according to current report, considered an arbitrary and un-called-for exercise of his power.

CHRISTCHURCH. January 14.

j The heavy rain during the whole of last I night has been general throughout the j district as was anticipated. The ballasting 11.«n some of the railway lines has been : washed away. Should no moderation take ! place in the weather before the afternoon, | and the nor'-wester set in heavier, the ! probability is that the traftic will again be | interrupted on the south lines. From I Ashburton information was received at ! 12.20 p.m. that the south express train \ had gone to North Rangitata. The line was damaged between the Rangitata and South Rangitata, and at several other places the water was flowing over the line. Up to 2 p.m. the express train, which is due at Timaru at 12.53, had not reached there, and it is thought the train is stuck up at North Rangitata Bridge. No particulars are to hand yet of the Rangitata having risen. It is expected, however, that the Orari is up, and that the water lias rushed along the line, breaking through in places. The mid-day train got through all right to Southbridge, and the ordinary traffic was in no way interfered with on the north line. At 10.30 a.m. a telegram was received from Soutbridge, saying it was raining- heavily, and the water was all along that branch line, and was running three inches over the rails at Hill's road. Platelayers were stationed along the line, and the train had been compelled to stop twice. No damage had been done that far, but if the rain continued it was feared some would be. We have since received the following message :—" 2.15 p.m.—Been raining heavily for the last 20 hours ; south line damaged about half a mile south of Rakaia ; the ballasting washed away for six chains, caused through the works of the Rakaia and Ashburton forks railway damming back the stormwater, which burst and swept away the south line ; traffic stopped since. Dtmedin train passed south this morning ; men were sent from Ashburton to repair, and expect to have traftic resumed to-night.

Later. The Dunedin express got in to-night only 18 minutes late.

AUOKLAjST). January 14. A petition is being forwarded to the Governor, praying him to commute the sentence on English of nine months' imprisonment, for wounding a native at Opotiki. \Vm. Tyrrell, who recently met with an accident on board the steamer Taiaroa, died to-day from spinal injuries. An exciting scene occurred on board the James Wishart. "When she was coming down the English Channel, on her way to Auckland, a terrific sco broke over the vessel, and did considerable damage. Amongst other things it broke into one of the deckhouses, where a quantity of gasoline and ammunition was stored. The concussion caused an explosion, and :i man named Jame3 Henderson was injured. The sea washed away a portion of the ignited substance, and the captain threw the remainder overboard, the others not daring to touch it. This action probabty saved the ship and the lives of those on board. ,

C4REYMOUTH. January 14. The Jockey Club have issued two days' programme for the 17th and 18th March, comprising :—Trial Stakes, 20 sovs ; Open Handicap Hurdle, 25 sovs, acceptance added : Railway Stakes, 130 sovs ; Goldfields Handicap, 30 sovs ; Grey Valley Handicap, 30 sovs; Handicap Hurdle 20 sovs ; ISTovel Race, 20 sovs ; Consolation, 15 sovs ; and hack evenis. PORT CHALMERS. January 15. Arrived —Steamer Ladybird, from Lyttelton. Sailed—Barque Wild Wave, for Hobart Town. At the annual convocation of the Joyce Royal Arch Chapter, No. 942, E.C., last night, a large assemblage of visitors and

I promptly made. But there was a con* current fact which, would probably throw additional light on the matter, viz., that in December last, immediately after the payment to the contractor of a sum of upwards of L3OOO, his certificate for the month, he sent in a claim for alleged extras of L 3500, of which the Council were advised that not one penny was due, and which claim they accordingly declined to recognise. A good part of that claim was, in fact, behind a receipt in full given by Sir. Henderson on the sth August last, only three months prior to the claim being sent in. He would presently give them the terms of that receipt, but would first state the circumstances under which it was given. Mr. Henderson had represented to the Council that the contract had been taken at so low a sum that the 20 per cent, retention provided for was so large a proportion as to have a crippling effect upon his operations, pointed out that a number of Government contracts recently let only provided for a retention of 10 per cent., and asked that the retention money might be reduced to a like amount. This of course would involve the payment to him of half the retention then in hand. The Council was willing to help him, so far as it could without prejudice to the contract, and consented, subject to the original sureties entering into fresh bonds under the new arrangement, to two additional sureties being given, and to Mr. Henderson giving a receipt in full discharge of all claims to date. All this was accordingly done, and on the sth of August a certificate was signed by the contractor to the following terms: — This certificate is correct, and includes all work of whatever kind executed to date under my contract with the Municipal Council of Oamara, the retention money being reduced to 10 per cent, at my request, and without prejudice in any respect to the contract, or the terms thereof, or any of the covenants in the said contract contained.

On the works being suspended in December, notice was served upon Mr. Henderson under the powers of the contract requiring him within seven days to have at least 100 men at work. That notice was not complied with, and the Engineer having certified to the Corporation that a breach of contract had been committed, Council took possession of the works and plant, and took immediate steps to re-let the work in sections ; a number of tenders having been already accepted, and others would be advertised for in a few days, so that he believed everything would be in full swing again within a few days from end to end of the works. It was satisfactory, too, to be able to say that, so far as they had proceeded, the Council found that they would be able to get the remainder of the work done within as little time and for the same expenditure, or very nearly so, as under the original contract. They had a margin to go upon as the retention money under the contract, contractor's deposit, &c. , amounted to over L3OOO, out of which he hoped there would be abundance available for the payment of workmen's claims already served upon the Council under the Contractors' Debts Act. [The speaker here read the statement of liabilities and assets which were published in an issue of the 12th December, showing the balance required to be L 33,230 17s 4d, explaining the various items in detail.] He would now proceed to show them how that balance arose, and as a first step towards doing so would first refer to the supposed guarantee by the Engineer that the cost of the scheme would not exceed L 05,000, out of which a great deal of capital had been sought to be made. The fact was that a guarantee had been given, but not a guarantee as to cost —the Engineer having staked his reputation very naturally upon the engineering and not financial question. This would be clearly seen bv the following extract from 14th, 18777 " """ Resolved—That, being advised by the Engineer that if the Waterworks are constructed to the plans prepared by him and adopted by the Council, there will, in addition to domestic supply of 30 gallons per day, for a population of 10,000, be an available motive power for machinery of not less than 300 h.p., and stakes his professional reputation on the correctness of the foregoing, this Council, relying upon the foregoing estimate, is of opinion that the necessary expenditure will be -wisely made, and wili prove remuneiative to the town, and therefore will proceed with the construction of the works.

Nor was this estimate of Mr. M'Leod of the capabilities of his scheme an unsupported one, for all particulars as to source of supply, length, width, and depth of race, and levels, were supplied to Mr. Blair, C.E., who, on the basis of these particulars, calculated that the amount of water delivered in Oamaru would be considerably in excess of the figures given by Mr. M'Leod. There was, however, some colorable ground for the statement as to the estimated costs of the works being LG5,000. The Engineer had furnished a calculation to that effect; but that calculation included works only, with an allowance for land required, and did not include extras, costs of preliminary surveys, interest on loan, and other items which had to be provided for. This would be seen by the following statements :

Statement Showing how the LG5,000 was

MADE UP. Inlet-work and concreting ... ... £3,300 Race-cutting ... ... ... ... 11.526 Tunnelling 4,800 Aqueducts 5.430 Flumes and boxes ... ... ... 4.039 By-washes and overbyes ... ... 550 Bridges and paddock-crossings ... 1,650 Reservoir and works ... ... ... 3,900 Fencing 3,500 Land 3,439 Pipes from reservoir and tow r n service 20,000

£65,000 Statement Showing Additional Items making up tne further sum required to complete work. Excess of Henderson's tender

over Engineer's estimate ... £720 S 9 Extras ordered and allowed to December 9, IS7S Future extras, say ... ... 5,12410 6 Preliminary surveys, detailed survey, preparation plans, pay of staff, &c 7,160 13 10 Additional cost of land ... I,GG9 12 1 Interest on overdraft and loan, less interest ou deposit 9,4-12 14 9 Lead services, including lay-

ing 2,203 0 0 Engineering staff till opening of works 2,000 0 0 Legal expenses, say 500 0 0

£30,815 10 5 Add Mr. M'Leod's estimate 65,134 0 0

£95,951 10 5 Proceeds, loan ... ... 61.157 IS 1 Rents, &c. 1,532 15 0 Balance required, as per statement 32,230 17 4 £95,951 10 5 His Worship next read a statement prepared by the Finance Committee of the Council, presented at the meeting held on the 2nd January, and published in an issue of the 3rd. This statement had special reference to the annual receipts and expenditure in connection with the waterworks, showing the estimated receipts to be —Consumers payments for domestic purposes, L2OOO ; rent of water for motive power, 300 h.p. at Lls, L 4500; rents set aside in aid of revenue, LIOOO ; general rate of 6d in £ on L 44,000 annual value, L 110 0; making in all LB6OO, a sufficient sum to cover the interest on LIOO,OOO loan and the expenditure in maintaining the water supply. Speaking of the endowments which had been made to the Municipality, the rents from which had been set aside in

aid of the waterworks expenditure, ho said he claimed some credit for having obtained the Maerewhenua endowment. He had had to go to Wellington and interview Ministers on the subject, and had written an immense amount of correspondence on the subject. They had had great difficulty in obtaining the endowment, as there was a strong opposition to it. The miners at Maerewhenua were under the impression that if the Corporation obtained the endowment they would be injured, and threatened to potition against it being granted. They had the courtesy and good sense to wait upon him before doing so, and the result was that Mr. Shrimski and he had visited Livingstone and convinced the miners that they had nothing to fear. This endowment was a very valuable one, and would bring in a very handsome sum, and tend to lessen taxation. It could easily be let, and in fact, applications had been made already for it. Then there were the Municipal sections at Georgetown, which had been purchased owing to the owners making a heavy claim for severance damages if the Corporation only took so | much of the land as was actually necessary. The Corporation had used the power whieh they possessed under the Act, and had acquired the sections altogether, at a fair valuation. Those sections had increased in value, and would now bring as much if sold as was given for the land altogether, including what had been used for waterworks purposes. His endeavor all through had been to so \ add to the revenue by means of endowments as to obviate the necessity for levying any rates. With a view to this end, they would remember that the session before last he had made an effort to secure for the Corporation the land north of the Courthouse, and known as the Police Paddock, which was at present being used merely for the purpose of grazing a a couple of troop horses, which he calculated were costing the country L6OO a year each, as the land would bring in a rental, if let for building sites, of about LI2OO a

year. He not only desired to secure this revenue for the Corporation, but at the same time the improvement of their principal street, which, in its turn, would mean a considerable increase in the ratable property of the town. He proceeded to Wellington ar d interviewed Ministers on the subject, and, with the support of the then Minister for Lands and others, a Bill was brought in to give effect to the proposal, which Bill passed the House of Representatives and its second reading in fie Legislative Council, and was only thrown out in Committee largely owing to the opposition of a local man. He, however, had not abandoned the hope of success, and intended to make fresh efforts for it. (A voice : Hear, hear.) Indeed he had already taken initiatory steps, in connection with which he had paid a recent visit to Christchurch, and this brought him to a little episode of a somewhat personal nature, which he felt bound to refer to, and he hoped that the ratepayer, whoever he was; to whom he should have to allude was present to hear what he was going to say. It was this— On his return from Christchurch he was informed by one of the members for the district (Mr. Hislop) that on the day that he (Mr. Steward) left for Christchurch ten minutes had not elapsed from the starting of the train when a ratepayer came into his (Mr. Hislop's) office, and shutting the door behind him, and putting his back against it, asked him what he thought Steward was up to now. Mr. Hislop replying that he did not know, the ratepayer informed him that he (the Mayor) had gone up to Cliristchurch for the purpose of getting the railway passenger station opposite his mill. Mr. Hislop replied that he could not credit it, as he understood Mr. Steward was strongly in favor of the 7^a ? oon site, when bi= An : Dut ne hadn t bought into the mill then." He (the Mayor) scorned to defend himself from what, if it meant anything at all, meant subordinating the public good to his own private ends ; but he had gone to Christchurch, and he would tell them why, and all that took place. When the effort before referred to was made to obtain the police paddock, he had consulted Mr. Lowe, as representing the Public Works Department here, and learned that the only case in which the proposal would be objected to would be in the event of the land being required for a railway station. That was nearly two years ago. When it was ascertained the other day from Mr. Macandrew, as Minister for Public Works, that the station was to be built on the Esplanade near Wear-street, it appeared to the Council that the Market Reserve question having also been settled, opportunity was now offered for renewing the effort for the police paddock, and they proceeded to consult the members for the district on the subject. The first to be consulted was the Hon, Mathew Holmes, from whom the Council learned that there was still a possibility of the Cricket Ground site being selected as the site for the passenger station. As, if this were the case, it would be impossible for the Council to secure the whole of the police paddock, it became necessary to ascertain the exact position, and he (Mr. Steward) proceeded to Christchurch and interviewed Mr. Lowe "upon the subject. He learned that the department were comparing the respective merits of the Wear-street site and the Cricket Ground site, but ascertained that even in the event of the latter being adopted, the frontage to Thamesstreet would not be required for railway purposes, and lie therefore proposed that in that event it should be asked for for the town. And now, just in passing, to show that he had in no way sought to further his own ends at that interview, he might add that his opinion was asked as to whether the station, if built on the Cricket Ground, should front towards Thames-street or towards Severnstreet. He had strongly recommended the former as best for the public convenience, while it must be evident to everyone that its fronting to Severnstreet would have increased the value of the property of the firm of which he %vas a member, and which property, he might add, he was interested in at the time he was advocating the Lagoon site. He thought that they should make a strenuous effort to secure the frontage to Thamesstreet, and if so they would secure an aid towards meeting their burdens to. the amount of some LI2OO a year more than was at present calculated upon. The Mayor then proceeded to. deal with numerous objections which had been urged against the water supply scheme. Many of these answered each other, for two diametrically converse propositions could not possibly both be true. That was one of the first principles of logic. For instance, it was held that water always sought the lowest level. It was held by the objectors that the fall of the race was towards the Waitaki instead of from it. Now he (the speaker) had seen water flowing three feet deep in the race from the Waitaki to the Awamoko, arid consequently was inclined to believe that the fall was necessarily in that direction. Then it was said that the pressure would not be great enough to supply any motive power at all, and it was conversely stated that the pressure would be so great as to burst up the pipes. Now, both those propositions could not be true, and he believed that with regard to them the familiarproverb," fn medio tutissimus ibis" (" The safest path is the middle,") would be found correct; that was to say that the pressure was simply such as was required. Then it was objected that it would take three years to finish the tu"'-? 1 « alone, but that was answered by th r1 138 chains only 28 were left to be completed, and would be finished in five months. Then it was objected that the seheme was altogether too large for the town, but even if so, it was rather too late in the day to

talk about that. Persons intoro»t«4 in manufactures had demanded water'-pQwer and the ratepayers had themselves insisted* on a scheme being adopted which ..

provide for this—in fact no one wou lv , have stood a chance of election to theCouncil two years ago who refused to give j his support to the Waitaki scheme. But I judging by the case of other Municipali. ties it did not appear that Oamaru was overstepping the mark, for only last week Invercargill, with a smaller population, had by plebiscite resolved upon- -borrowing LIOO,OOO for water supply, and it might happen that they would also want further funds before they finished. Auckland obtained authority in 1873 to borrow LIOO,OOO, and in 1876 had to obtain authority to borrow L 25,000 more. Wei. lington, which started with too small a service, was now going to spend LIOO,OOO more, and Dunedin, which started with a 12in service, supplimented by a 15in, waa now going in for what was known as the Silverstream scheme. One more example would suffice. That was the case of Brisbane, which commenced with a L 65,000 Government loan, followed by a second! loan of L 25,000, and a third loan of L 6000,, with L 24,000 from other sources—a total of L 119,000 for a shorter race than that now being constructed for Oamaru. He now came to an argument which he understood some persons were using, namely—that if the L 40,000 loan were nofc sanctioned the town would not be Hablo to be rated in respect to the L 60,000 loan, as no rate, it was contended, could be levied till the water waa laid on. Now, if they thought that the House of Representatives,, and more especially the Legislative Council,, were such geese as to pass a borrowing Bill without taking care of the interests of the lender, they were mightily mistaken, and they would find by turning to section 4 of the Oamaru Waterworks Act, 1875, that if default were made in payment of interest the Supreme Court could step in and protect the bondholder; and further, by. turning to section 112 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1876, they would then see that the Council was empowered to levy an annually recurring special rate in such sum as might be necessary to pay the interest upon any loan. Even were it not so, he would never believe that any British community —certainly no community in New Zealand—would ever take advantage of any lapse of legislation to evade the' payment of their just debts.—(Applause.) He was aware that he had his personal enemies, but lioped that they would not transfer their quarrels to his oflice, and punish the town because they wanted to injure him. He had as clearly and as concisely as the task admitted placed the position before them, and would ask them calmly to think over the matter, and he thought they would find that when it was the case that it was necessary to spend fourpence more to get a shilling in return, as against being out of pocket eightpence without any return at all, the wise policy was to spend tho additional fourpence, or as in this case to vote aye on the question of the L 40,000 loan. He had now to announce that a poll would be taken on the question on Thursday, the 23rd instant, between the hours ..of 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., at the Municipal Council Chambers. He found lie had omitted to mention that he had had a return prepared showing the increase in the ratable value of the town since 1873, which gave a total increase in the five years of L 26,446. The figures for 1873 were L 16,316 and the figures for 1878 L 42,763 ; so that if the town progressed at anything like an equal ratio, the burdens they were about incurring would soon become comparatively light. He had now to thank them fot the very patient hearing they had accorded him, and said ho would be happy, in reply to questions, to afford them any information it was in his power to give. His Worship then resumed his' seat ' amidst deafening applause. > - [We are compelled to hold over tt» balance of our report.]