The City Solicitor and Town Clerk
A long, and at times exciting, discussion took place at the meeting of the City Council last night upon the Mayor’s motion – “That a solicitor Town Clerk be appointed, at a salary not exceeding £1000 per annum.” At the opening of the meeting, a letter was read from Mr. Travers, asking permission to attend and make a statement regarding the Sinclair business. The Mayor ruled that the City Solicitor could not be heard. Supposing a motion discussing the conduct of a Government officer were tabled in the House, that officer would not be allowed to appear on the floor of the Chamber to attempt to bias the decision of members.
Councillor Allen moved, and Councillor Thompson seconded, that Mr. Travers be heard, urging that it would be unfair if Mr. Travers were not allowed to defend himself. The motion was then put and carried, only the Mayor and Councillor Diver voting against it. Mr. Travers was then admitted, and read the following statement: “I think it necessary, personally, to bring under your notice the following matters in connection with the completion of the release by the Messrs Sinclair and their mortgagee of the land taken for the reservoir at Wainui-o-mata. When the questions which have been discussed between us in relation to this transaction were first mooted, I was led to believe, both by his Worship the Mayor and the Town Clerk, that I had permitted the sum of £240 to be paid over to the Messrs Sinclair on receipt of a release of the area of the reservoir alone, when, as a fact, that payment was intended to have covered the land taken for the pipe-track as well as that taken for the reservoir.
Believing these representations to have been well-founded, and acting under the impression that the instructions given to me for the release extended to ‘all the lands taken from the Messrs Sinclair under the proclamation,’ I, without investigating the question any further, assumed that I had been guilty of an oversight in accepting a release limited in its operation to the reservoir area alone, and thereupon, both verbally and by written memorandum, undertook to indemnify the Corporation from such loss as they had sustained by reason of that oversight. Within the last few days, however, I have become aware of circumstances which satisfy me that no oversight whatsoever had been committed, and that the release executed by the Messrs Sinclair carried into effect the exact terms of the arrangement made with those gentlemen.
When I was first informed of this, namely, on the 21st instant, I addressed a memorandum to the Town Clerk, to the terms of which I now beg leave to refer. To this memorandum I have received no reply, but I have become aware that the Council, by resolution duly minuted in its proceedings, gave the Town Clerk authority to purchase the site of the reservoir from the Messrs Sinclair at a rate not exceeding £9 per acre, and I have been informed by Mr. Waters (agent for the Messrs Sinclair in connection with this matter) that the Town Clerk, after the passing of this resolution, absolutely agreed with him to pay £8 an acre for the reservoir area, and that no mention of the pipe track was made from the beginning to the end of the negotiations.
I have in my possession a copy of correspondence on this subject between Mr. Waters and the Messrs Sinclair on the one hand, and the Town Clerk on the other, and it corroborates, so far as it goes, the above statement that the pipe track formed no part of the subject of the negotiations. On looking at the instructions sent to me in connection with this matter, I find that the word ‘all’ does not occur before the word ‘lands,’ as I had supposed, and it appears to me to be clear, when the actual instructions are read by the light of the correspondence above referred to, and are taken in connection with the arrangement said to have been entered into by the Town Clerk with Mr. Waters, that the release, as prepared, is in strict accordance with the contract between the Messrs Sinclair and the Corporation.
I have to call the attention of the Council to the Town Clerk’s memorandum, No. 331, of the 11th of January last, in which, referring to the original instructions as set out in his memorandum, No. 272, of 23rd of June 1882, he no doubt unintentionally misquotes the latter by introducing the word ‘all’ before the word ‘lands’ where, as above observed, it does not occur. That some arrangement of the nature stated by Mr. Waters must have been made with him by the Town Clerk, is evident from the circumstance that, within a day or two after the Town Clerk had been authorized to settle at a price not exceeding £9 an acre, he informed me that ‘the Council had arranged to pay the Messrs Sinclair the sum of £240,’ whilst, as a fact, no such arrangement had been made with the Council itself.
I further call attention to the absence from the memorandum sent to the Messrs Sinclair on this subject of the word ‘all’ before the word ‘land,’ and to suggest that their agent, even if there had been no prior correspondence pointing this memorandum, might well, looking to the resolution of the Council, have assumed that the offer contained in it related to the reservoir only. Under these circumstances, I beg, for the present, to withdraw every admission made by me that there was any oversight or neglect on my part, or on that of my late partner, in connection with the release in question, and every offer of compensation made by me based upon the supposed existence of such oversight or neglect, and I venture respectfully to suggest, in view of the fact that I have not received from the Town Clerk any statement in reply to my memorandum of the 21st instant, that he be requested to report to the Council ‘whether or not there was anything in his communications with Mr. Waters, or with the Messrs Sinclair, which could lead those gentlemen to understand that the £240 offered to them was intended to cover more than the purchase money for the area of the reservoir,’ or that a committee should be appointed to enquire into and advise the Council upon the whole transaction.
In order that the citizens may know the full amount at stake in this matter, which report has greatly exaggerated, I beg to add that, assuming an oversight to have been committed by me, the possible total loss to the Corporation is £50, and no more, whilst, if no oversight has taken place, the Council can have sustained no loss at all.”
Tags: Newspaper Waterworks
