A Bad Precedent.

Observer, Volume XIV, Issue 784, 13 January 1894, Page 2

A Bad Precedent.

In theatrical parlance, there was a * crowded house ' at Onehunga Borough Council Meeting on Monday night. Her Worship the Mayor is certainly proving a fine advertisement for the little township over which she holds municipal sway. Onehunga has never, in all its sleepy existence, attracted so much attention before. Those who attended laat Monday evening's council meeting in anticipation of what the daily newspaper reporter calls a ' scene,' were not altogether disappointed. Her Worship was in great form. A

wordy warfare ensued over the. signing, or rather the proposed signing, of the minutes of the previous meeting and of a special meeting, Her Worship firmly declining to s ign either. And so the minutes went unsigned. And what will happen now? Will the world come to an end? Let us gasp.

This, however, was bat the patter of rain-drops before the thunder - storm. The fan commenced in earnest when the appointment of a town clerk came upon the carpet. Forty gentlemen put in applications for the billet. The ActingTown Clerk had hardly read oat the last name on the list when Her Worship chipped in and moved the following resolution : ' That Captain Richardson (who had offered to do the work for £90 per annum) be appointed to the position of town clerk, returning officer, etc., at a salary of £90 per year/ Mr Jackson most properly protested against the appointment of Captain Richardson. The Act required the salary to be fixed and the Council had invited applications at £110 per annum. He (Mr Jackson) did not believe in tendering for the position. Her Worship, who was evidently prepared for opposition, said that Captain Richardson was in receipt of a pension and could afford to do the Borcugh work for £90 a year. And in spite of an amendment moved by Mr Wade, • that Captain Richardson's tender be rejected as informal,' the motion was carried, and so Captain Richardson gets the billet and the thirty-nine other gentlemen who didn't know the appointment was to be tendered for, are left out in the cold.

There may well be dissatisfaction over this appointment. Such a case is unparalleled in the history of municpal appointmentß, and establishes a very bad precedent. If applicants for theße billets are to be allowed to undercut each other, it will be necessary to append the words, ' the lowest or any tender not necessarily accepted' to the advertisements calling for applications for Council vacancies. The fact that a man is in receipt of a pension or that he possesses other private means is simply beside the question. The disappointed candidates for office may well feel that a surprise has been sprung upon them in this case. Had they known that the Council, after offering £110 per annum, intended to give as much less as possible, it is quite on the cards that some of them would have tendered at £50, or even less. I am afraid there are troublous times ahead for Onebunga.