TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY, 21st SEPTEMBER, 1936. THE CLOCK TOWER.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3811, 21 September 1936, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY, 21st SEPTEMBER, 1936. THE CLOCK TOWER.

EITHER by design or accident the Borough Council has misconstrued the request put to it by the Chamber of Commerce regarding a site on which the town clock is to be reerected. All that the Chamber asked was that there be no precipitate decision. The written request was explicit:

“ I am directed to ask,” wrote the secretary, “ that your Council delay the proposed erection of the clock in Redoubt Street until other sites have been thoroughly investigated.”

Instead of a logical interpretation of a request so plainly stated, the Council conveys an impression that the Chamber has some mischievous intent, and, indeed, has blocked a “ move ” which the Council was attempting with a State Department.

“ The Chamber,” said the Mayor, “has now asserted itself by condemning the proposed site, but it has not offered any other site as suitable for the purpose. The Chamber has done its best to prevent the Council from getting the site.”

Whether these misstatements are deliberate is of little concern, but it

certainly is a pity that such thoughts should have been given expression in a discussion which it would have been preferable to regard as arising out of a genuine desire for the public good. The very fact that the Chamber did not stand in advocacy of any one site was at least an evidence of its desire that there should be an open investigation, and that the inquiry should not be prejudged. Is that an unreasonable request for any citizen or organisation to direct to the controlling authority ? Has it any sinister intention, and is it, as the Mayor alleged, condemnatory of what the Council proposes to do.? It is practical, surely, for systematic planning to precede action in any service of public utility. It is by no means wide of the mark to suggest that neither the citizen nor the Council can at this stage of events approve or condemn any suggested clock location because advocacy or condemnation relies entirely on theoretic, assumptions. If the layman could claim proficiency in such matters then there would be no need at all for architects and surveyors. It the eye were able to decide the range of visibility from every vantage point or detect the clearances to a nicety, then the theodolite and the measuring chain would be unnecessary instruments. Actually the advocacy or condemnation of any site just now is absurd for the very reason that so much depends on the dimensions of the tower itself, and unless the Council has plans hidden away from public gaze it is guilty of adhering to a haphazard theory. After all, a clock tower is a very definite thing, and it is folly to discuss the merits of a tower that is yet, for all we know, abstract and indefinite.

More deplorable still was the Mayor’s general attitude. Much was said that would have been better left unsaid. The question was not yet one of administration, it having merely reached the stage of discussion when public opinion should reasonably have been free to express itself. But instead of holding the scales fairly, as he should'have done, the Mayor at once displayed a bitter partisanship. About a year has elapsed since the postal authorities advised the Council that the clock would have to be removed, but the Mayor has never yet taken the citizens into his confidence. Not a word has yet been said on the subject of finance, and only when application was made for a portion of the Police Department property was indication given of the Councils choice of site. The Chamber of Commerce desired a more open discussion and a systematic investigation prior to any decision. Are we to believe that the citizens are to suffer denial of free speech, and that instead of a democracy we have an autocracy in our local government ? And is it possible that if citizen discussion of public projects is contemplated the mayoral office no longer provides an impartial presidency ?- In administration the Mayor must, of course, exercise the authority that is vested in his office, but he should always be approachable without the danger, as on this occasion, of encountering a bitter partisan whose sympathies lie with a coterie of councillors even to the degree that he distorts and misstates the very case over which he is asked to preside. The Mayor may live to learn that Te Awamutu is not yet ready to accept a dictatorship.

His remark that the Chamber of Commerce members years ago would not pay a penny of the cost was ungenerous, to say the least. The facts are that the citizens were never given an opportunity to subscribe to any public fund, because it so happened that immediately it became known that the clock could be acquired the late Mr Wm. Taylor came forward with the full amount required. It was perhaps the most outstanding example of spontaniety in endowing the town that Te Awamutu has ever known. This remark which the Mayor has now made is an unkindly and uncalled-for thrust which will not be allowed to pass unnoticed for the reason that it is neither true nor warranted. Perchance the Mayor has failed to notice a marble slab in the tower structure which is a more sacred memory to many people than the clock itself, and though he may know neither good teste nor sentiment, Te Awamutu is not similarly unappreciative. Sentiment and appreciation are not unknown qualities in human nature, and the tablet in the clock tower merely keeps alive a sentiment that had its origin in a generous act by one who revered his town a quarter of a century ago. Perhaps when the Mayor—and the Council, too —learns to understand that the removal of the tablet to a back street is a poor compliment there will be a desire as expressed by the Chamber of Commerce that such a location should be resorted to only after competent inquiry proves that a more prominent site is impracticable or impossible. After all, if memorials that mark acts of public-spiritedness are to be ruthlessly set in out-of-the-way places by after-day councillors, without question by the citizens, we must surely have reached an age of materialism without the qualities of recognition and sentiment.

The Mayor is unduly sensitive and precipitate when he imagines that the Chamber of Commerce condemned his pet site. Excepting, perhaps, his circle of councillors, nobody is in a position as yet to approve or condemn it. The ’dimensions of the

tower, the nature of its construction, its probable cost, and how it is to be financed—these are all questions which the auditor would expect to know before he could exercise judgment; and on the question of location it is reasonable to suppose that an unbiassed inquiry would disclose that other sites are at least worthy of consideration; and—who knows ?—it i g possible that investigation may reveal a better choice than the location on which the councillors’ attention is riveted—almost to the degree of making it an obsession.