PARIHAKA ROAD BOARD.

Opunake Times, Volume VII, Issue 326, 22 October 1897, Page 2

PARIHAKA ROAD BOARD.

(to the editor.) Sir, —The enclosed are copies of correspondence between myself and Mr McGloin, and it not encroaching too much on your space I would ask you to kindly publish them, so that the ratepayers may see what an adept he is at making charges.—l am, &c., M. Fleming. Mr M. Fleming, Chairman Parihaka Road Board. Dear Sir,— At a meeting of the above Board, held on the 19th day of July, you, as Chairman of the Board, accused me of going to Oaonui and telling a deliberate falsehood, You also allowed Mr Me Hardy to abuse and blackguard me instead of discussing the motion before the Board. lam posting notices up in various places throughout the Road Board district, challenging you, Messrs MeHardy and Dew to call a public meeting of the ratepayers at Rahotu, and prove your malicious statement to the ratepayers. I still maintain every word I said at Oaonui was correct (and you know it), I am not going to allow this matter to rest by your ruling on the Board, backed up by Messrs McHardy, Dew and Co. You knew perfectly well you had a friend in Mr Brennan who would publish auy statement you made, so long as it injured me iu the eyes of the ratepayers, whether that statement was true or false. You and Brennan seems to be indifferent. I am perfectly satisfied with the decision of the ratepayers whatever that will be.—Yours faithfully, T. McGloin, Rahotu. Cape Egmont, October 17, 1897. T. McGloin, Esqr. Sir, —Yours of no date came to hand in due course, I would have replied before now but your charges against me as chairman of tho Parihaka Road Board are so infamous that there was no one could deal with them but the members of the Board that were present at the meeting. I regret very much your absence from yesterday’s meeting (though no doubt you had very good reasons for absenting yourself). The members present were unanimous that your charges against me were without the slightest foundation (and that is about as mild as I can put it). It is quite true I accused you of telling a deliberate falsehood at Oaonui, and did I not prove from the accounts rendered to the Board from the Budget and the Opunake Times that you did so. You, sir, could not justify the statement let alone prove its correctness. You also accuse me of making, and Mr Brennan of publishing statements, the correctness of which is doubtful. This is most ungenerous on your part to Mr Brennan, for there is no member of the Board more indebted to him as reporter than yourself. The statements made by me wore from papers which are still in the Board’s office and were not intended to injure you with the ratepayers. Judging by your actions you seem to take more interest in misrepresenting the actions of the Board than what you do in the ratepayers’ behalf. Either that or your intense antipathy for Mr Brennan have so warped your mind that it is impossible for you to discuss anything that concerns the Orusake Times impartially. I should have great pleasure in meeting you before the ratepayers and discussing Road Board matters, and shall be prepared to do so, when you make ample and public apology for the charges you made against me as Chairman of the Parihaka Road Board. Until you do that 1 shall have to treat you with the contempt that your actions deserve.—Yours faithfully, M. Fleming.