THE Poverty Bay Independent. Published every Saturday morning. Saturday, June 20, 1885.

Poverty Bay Independent, Volume I, Issue 16, 20 June 1885, Page 2

THE Poverty Bay Independent. Published every Saturday morning. Saturday, June 20, 1885.

In spite of the assertion made by Cr. Joyce to the effect that his motion “ did imply a vote of censure upon the En-

gineer,” yet we cannot possibly accept it in any other light; and although there is little room to doubt but what, had Mr. Joyce taken the bolder and more direct course of baseing his motion on the miserable failure which has attended the worst experimental effort at engineering which has ever been inflicted on the Gisborne ratepayers, the result would have been the same as that arrived at by the council on Tuesday evening, yet we feel bound to say that had he done so he would have taken up a far stronger and more fortified position than that occupied by the indirect motion by which he sought to achieve the same results. With respect to the nonsense with which our contemporary seeks to beg the engineer question, we cannot do other than express sincere pity for such sheer twaddle. How delightfully simple the following reads when taken in connection with the bridge fiasco : “ It is, or should be, an indisputable maxim that anything that is worth doing at all is worth doing well.” Then, again, when referring to Wanganui, Napier, and the Thames, the amusing and innocent writer says “it does not follow that because a foolish policy may have been adopted in certain small towns every other rising borough is to follow a doubtful lead !!” Small towns 1 Are not the towns mentioned above nearly three times larger than this “ rising borough ?” Let us see the comparison: Wanganui, population, 5,124 ; Thames, 5,293; Napier, 6,352 ; and Gisborne, 2,550. The writer’s “ apparently feeble arguments,” together with the whole concoction of puerile twaddle, are unworthy of anything but contempt and ridicule. Whether it would be wise to dispense with the services of an engineer, or whether it would be practicable or economical to depend upon a road overseer, are questions which we utterly refuse to discuss. What we distinctly say is that the gentleman who now occupies the position of Borough Engineer has not alone proved, in many instances besides the disgraceful bridge fiasco, his utter incompetency to fulfil the duties of his professional position, but that he has been the primary cause of the destruction of an important public work which will most seriously effect the interests of this “ rising borough,’’ and that no amount of cant, lying, and sycophantic twaddle, can contravert the fact that the Turanganui Bridge, as it now stands, is a crying monument to sheer incompetency and jobbery, and is a “ disgrace to the intelligence, uprightness, and manly independence of our public men.” Although our remarks may be strong, they are justified by the event, and we challenge anyone to dispute one of the numerous incontrovertible statements which we have made. All that has been done is to descend to falsehood and equivocation, and to call plain and outspoken truth “ scurrility !''