The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1896.

Timaru Herald, Volume LX, Issue 2264, 9 December 1896, Page 2

The Timaru Herald WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1896.

It will be seen by our report of yesterday's meeting of the Harbour Board that Mr Parr, the Board's foreman, is to receive a month's notice of his discharge. The member who brought on the discussion alleged that Mr Parr " was injuring the prestige, the dignity, and the usefulness of the Board by the way m which he was .writing to the papers, criticising Mr Maxwell and the policy of the Board." Anothei complaint was that he had criticised a member of the Board, and perhaps we might reckon as a third count m the indictment that he had made a model designed to show that m course of time the harboui would be blocked by shingle from the south unless means were taken to avert the catastrophe. Mr Pringle was the member who moved that Mr Parr should receive notice, and was also the member who spoke ol the model. It is true that he ridiculed it, but he seemed to be rather sore on the subject, and he was very " rough " on Mr Parr's remedy. The report says :— " He (Mr Pringle) went to see the model, and heard it explained. Mr Parr was asked what liis remedy was, and he said it wa? a slit through the mole, but he could not show it to scale, because a bubble of air would stop it. Those were Mr Parr's own words. How was he going to work with his slit if a bubble would block it?' ; This criticism of Mr Parr's remedy is about the funniest thing that we have heard for some time, An air bubble would be sufficient to stop a slit m the mole made on the scale of Mr Parr's little model ; therefore, according to Mr Pringle, an air bubble would stop the comparatively huge slit m, the breakwater if Mr Parr's remedy were tried on -the work itself ! We may not have much faith m the remedy, but we have still less m Mr Pringle's reasoning. Nor can we see why the model, with or without the remedy, should be made a ground for dismissing Mr Parr. Supposing he had made a model which on being worked would not pile up the stuff m the harbour mouth — would that have been a ground for dismissing him ? Surely not ; those members of the Board who do not believe m the blocking-up theory would m that case have kept Mr Parr day and night pumping away at his model, agitating his mighty ocean, and proving that they were right. They would have voted to raise his wages instead of voting to get rid of him. Thus, it was not the making of a model that was the cause of offence, but the making of a model, which would not give the results that Mr Pringle and other members of the Board wanted to see. To constitute that one of the grounds for sacking

l man seems rather hard measure. let, if Mr Pringle did not regard it n that light, why did he mention he model when moving his motion 'or Mr Parr's dismissal ? It is clear ;hat the majority looked on the model as something that was "injuring the prestige, the dignity, and the usefulness of the Board," be-, cause it showed nature on a very diminutive scale doing what the majority swore she would not do at the real harbour mouth. They ought to have sacked nature, and not Mr Parr, or perhaps they might have rested content with purchasing the offending machine and chopping it up for telling lies. In regard to the letters we admit that Mr Parr has been injudicious ; but he has also been a very useful, faithful and intelligent servant, and we think the Board might have remembered that for a considerable time he occupied a position of more trust and responsibility than an ordinary foreman does, though he had that name on the pay-sheet, and that although he wrote a letter. or two to the papers he was prompted thereto by a sincere desire to promote- the safety of the harbour. Under all the circumstances it would have been sufficient to reprimand him, and caution liim to j write no more letters to the Herald, { and to make no models showing that the shingle will block the har- 1 bour. Perhaps the Board were foolish m getting rid of Mr Parr, for whereas whilst m their service [ he built only one small model which worked adversely to their views, he may now build twenty on a more extended scale and of more elaborate and convincing design, and cause them to be taken through the country and worked for the information of the ratepayers and general public. _ • "■