WE HAVE NO SHARES

Observer, Volume XVIII, Issue 1023, 6 August 1898, Page 2

WE HAVE NO SHARES

Because We Sold Them,

Ma Campbell is entitled to blow out his bosom with pardonable pride, and hurl a his opponents the unassailable fact that there are no owners of gas shares on his side of the fence. Consequently, by his own process of reasoning, no improper motives can be attributed to himself or his friends. Stay t His friend and staunch supporter the Editor of the Star used to own a tidy parcel of gas shares. He sold a thousand pounds worth some time ago and still keeps a fair number. He didn't sell them because Hugh and his philanthropic friends were going to collar the electric lighting rights of Auckland and bust the Gas Company. Not he. He Bold them because the thing was a monopoly. Possibly he kept the second thousand pounds worth for the same reason. Who is there t hat will not ad* mire the philanthropic Editor of the Star ? And if Mayor Dignan and Councillor Kidd

had only followed his example and sold their shares, there would have been nothing more to say. Hugh Campbell, in that case, would have been satisfied that their hostility was inspired by pure and honest motives, and would have withdrawn the bill. Indeed:

The Star's paroxysm of rage at the refusal of the City . Council to hand over the electric lighting rights of the city to this syndicate is quite consistent with the Star's usual spirit of philanthropy. Ttie Star was not grieving at what the syndicate of other philanthropists had lost. It was grieving at what the people had lost. They had lost so much— so very much. A^nd all throngh the dodgery of the City Council. It was shameless dodgery, of course, to keep out of the clutches of this mysterious syndicate. It was obstruction, also, to preserve to the City Council the right to make the best terms possible for the electric light. We live and learn.