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Otago Daily Times, Issue 5803, 24 September 1880, Page 2

What are the public to think of the little diacussion which took place in the City Council on Tuesday, when Councillor Fish tackled Councillor Carroll with regard to a statement alleged to have been made by that gentleman to the effect that there was a clique in the Council as constituted before the recent elections ? Curiously enough, the assertion thus with very considerable parade repudiated, coincides with a very general impression which haa prevailed amongst the citizens, which, like many other impressions, is difficult to analyse or trace to the source and origin. It is quite evident that although Councillor Carroll was fairly cornered by being put as it were to the open proof, he had expressed the opinion imputed to him, and has probably not altered that opinion, although he mad* what we must consider a not very dignified retreat. It would certainly have been more judicious and more candid if, instead of explaining that what he meant by a clique was "a majority working against a minority," he had stood by his colours and averred that he believed there had been an understanding amongst certain •members to stand by each other in particular matters, and that the councillors whose names were indicated had a way with them in things essential of seeing with the spectacles of their leader and guide. No one can deny to Mr H. S. Fish, jun., the possession of considerable ability and very ekilful tactics ; he has displayed both these qualities conspicuously within the last few days. Seeing that the ratepayers were determined to break up the old formation of the City Council, he at once accepted the situation, and we have his own word for it that he used his influence in at least two of the wards to have new men returned, dropping his quondam disciples, Messrs Isaac and Roberts. Thus, it may be noted, he at once astutely established an entente cordials with the new blood,_the infusion of which, we venture to think, he would have found himself altogether powerless to prevent. Next, by a master move, Mr Fish takes the very earliest opportunity of meeting the somewhat vague charges and uncircumstantial rumours which have long been flying about as to his leading the Council by a hook through its nose. He brings Councillor Careoll to book as having committed himself to a definite assertion which was incapable of demonstrative proof, and which consequently he was enforced to withdraw to the extent of saying, very much in effect, that what he said he did not exactly mean, but that what he meant might reasonably have been expressed by what he said. This lucid explanation Mr Fish expressed himself " quite willing to accept in the spirit in which it was made"! We have not alluded to this subject with any denire to rake up the ashes of the " wretched past," but are, in common with the citizens as a body, necessarily content to " let bygones be bygonee"; but we would point out that there are passages in the municipal history of Dunedin which cannot be obliterated by any assumption of injured innocence, and that the consequences of these transactions are not financially satisfactory. We by no means give our unqualified, assent to !the aphorism that " what everybody saye must be true," but on the principle that I there ia no smoke without fire, when the 'same thing ia said or thought for a period of yean by those in a position to know ita significance, we may take for granted that it can hardly be wholly false.