MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4186, 15 September 1939, Page 4

MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS

AMENITIES TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. EXTRACTS FROM OUR FILES. Apparently matters municipal in Te Awamutu twenty-five years ago were even more exciting and interesting than they are to-day, for it was at that period that the controversy as to whether or not Te Awamutu should become a borough was raging. Town Board members indulged in plenty of disputes on sideissues, as revealed by the following extracts from The WWpa Post of a Town Board meeting reported on %sth September, 1914:

Complimentary reference had been made to the success of Mr A. S. Wallace as chairman of the Board. After remarks by Messrs W. Taylor and S. C. Mathews and Dr J. S. Reekie, Mr Mathews, as an old member of the Board, stated that Mr Wallace had proved himself the most able, most conscientious, and most impartial chairman he had ever sat under.

•Mr J. B. Teasdale: In what way, Mr Mathews ? You are casting a deliberate slur on all of us former chairmen. There have been just as capable chairmen, and chairmen who did lots more work than Mr Wallace has done.

Mr Mathews: He has been capable in keeping this Board’s meetings in order, Mr Teasdale. ■Mr Teasdale: He could not keep you in order, whatever else he has done!

;Mr 'Mathews: He has proved his capabilities by keeping you well in order, anyhow. I say again he has done more good work and occupied the chair better than any former chairman, including yourself, Mr Teasdale, even though you regard yourself as the only chairman capable of doing good work! Mt Teasdale: You don’t know what you are talking about! We former chairmen did three times as much work!

Mr Taylor: No! That cannot be said fairly. He has done more, and done it better. He has given more time and gone to more trouble to see that public business was well carried out than any former chairman has ever done. Mr Teasdale: Bah! He has not done half the work he should have done. He has in some respects neglected the duties of his office. Where has all this supposed work and trouble been ?

Mr Taylor: It has certainly been no trouble to those who never trouble to find out what trouble really was.

Mr Teasdale: I have worked harder than any of you. Why, it was a good deal through me that you got £lOOO off your water-supply, costs. Mr Mathews: I like that for barefaced cheek! Dr Reekie and I went to Auckland in connection with that mater, and had every bit as much to do with it as you did ! Mr Teasdale: Why, 'Dr Reekie ran away, and you got lost! If it hadn’t been for me—

Amidst uproarious laughter at Mr Teasdale’s assertion the chairman closed the meeting, and so concluded in more or less disorder the last meeting of the Town Board for the 1912-1914 term.