MACKENZIE COUNTY AFFAIRS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20607, 22 December 1936, Page 5

MACKENZIE COUNTY AFFAIRS

To the Editor ot “ The Tlmaru Herald.” Sir,—As I am now approaching my twentieth year of service on local bodies, I trust it will be forgiven me if I make some criticism of our <bwn County Council and its doings. I am minded to do this on account of certain statements made at the last Council meeting, and which duly appeared in the columns of your paper, and which certainly call for some comment. Thus a minor sensation was created and a storm of opposition raised when I said “It was a case of you scratch my back and I will scratch yours.” Yet the truth of this I stoutly maintain, and indeed it is borne out by two further statements reported in the same issue of your paper. Thus Mr Campbell said, “In this instance I am pleased to agree with Mr Murray; he is talking sense at last.” Now why does Mr Campbell suddenly make what is an apparent “volte face” and depart from his traditional attitude of opposing me, to that of graciously giving me his support? It is for the very good reason that the suggestion did not emanate from me, but from the county engineer, one of his own faction. But strange to say, on three previous occasions I made exactly similar suggestions namely, that the Council employees should be used in lieu of contractors to carry out certain work, yet in each of these cases, Mr Campbell, together with his coterie, opposed me. It amused me not a little when Mr Campbell said “That Mr Murray was talking sense at last,” for of all people that I have been acquainted with on public bodies, Mr Campbell is the most difficult to follow, and it strongly smacks of the “pot calling the kettle black,” for Mr Campbell, by repeating himself frequently and wandering from the point, manages to say in half an hour what most people would say in five minutes, and yet he has the temerity to say that I am speaking sense at last.

But there was another cause of slight irritation on the backs of two of the members which required a little reciprocal soothing, and it concerns the Government grant for some of the side roads in the Mackenzie County. A list was drawn up, in order of preference, of certain roads which stood in need of such a grant, and a road in the Tekapo riding headed the list, yet, strange to say a road, third or fourth down the list, in the Albury riding, received the grant, which certainly suggests that one of the members and the engineer had been at each other’s backs to

sooth a distressing state of dermatitis existing there. In commenting on these two matters I trust that I will not be accused of petty jealousy or malice, for such is far from my thoughts, but I consider it my duty to place before the public gaze, some of the strange little incidents that occur in our midst.—l am, etc., GEORGE MURRAY. “Braemar,” Lake Tekapo, December 20.