New Zealand Mail 21 Nov 1884

MR. PETHERICK AT THORNDON

Mr James Petherick, jun., one of the Mayoralty candidates, addressed a meeting at the Princess Hotel on Wednesday. There were about 30 persons present, the smallness of the audience being due, doubtless, to the fact that the meeting had been convened as if for the transaction of private business.

Mr M. Quin, who was voted to the chair, said that Mr Petherick had come forward as a candidate because many people in the city were dissatisfied with Mr Fisher, the present Mayor.

Mr Petherick, who was received with applause, said he had considered it his duty to come to this end of the town in order to acquaint the residents with the circumstance that his friends in all parts of the city had requested him to come forward as a candidate for the Mayoralty, in consequence of his course of action in the council since he had been elected to that body in September 1883. He went into the council to effect reform, and he had carried out that object to the best of his ability.

He explained that at the time he was elected, it was considered by the residents of the Te Aro end of the town that some effort should be made to break up a ring then in a majority in the council. He had moved in sundry matters, and he had never had a more substantial supporter than his Worship the Mayor until it suited that gentleman to turn round on him. (Hear, hear).

After the end of the last financial year, Mr Petherick said, his Worship the Mayor proposed a rate to meet ordinary expenditure, which, of course, would go as a special rate. He (Councillor Petherick) objected strenuously to that proposal, which was eventually rejected by the Council, and from that day the Mayor turned round and had been the reverse of friendly. Nevertheless, Mr Petherick claimed that he had fought on and made search after search.

As a sequence of his researches, he alluded to the drainage loan of £50,000, which had been authorised some years ago for the drainage of the city. No records of expenditure had been kept of a most extensive work—the Tinakori Road drainage—and £20,000 had disappeared completely. It was a singular fact, he pointed out, that while there was a drainage loan, there was an overdraft; but when they had no drainage loan, there was no overdraft. The loan, in fact, had been managed in such a manner that it appeared now to have gone completely out of existence; and he was sorry to say that they must have another loan if they desired to have health in the city.

The Wainui waterworks, he said, had been a positive failure, and he pointed out that in this matter he had taken a determined stand. The dam was as wretched an attempt as was ever made; he had kicked a piece of it off when out at Wainuiomata, which had to be wrapped in straw to keep it intact. Drainage had been done which cost fully £150,000, at a rough calculation, to make the waterworks efficient and to bring the water into town. Yet at any day, they might be left without the supply of water from Wainui.

Mr Baird had said that the work was one of the finest in the Southern Hemisphere; but notwithstanding that, he (Mr Petherick) had objected strongly to the Mayor’s proposal to take the works over. Here Mr Petherick, alluding to the manner in which he had been reported in the Press, said that some people who wore long hats were in the habit of going to the editors and making alterations. (A voice: “Mr Fisher does not write for the Post, though, does he?”)

Mr Petherick said he should not say anything about Mr Fisher in connection with that matter. Continuing his remarks in reference to the waterworks, he said that the water race cost £7,000, and it was not as reliable as it would have been had it been constructed of pipes; and besides, if any breakage occurred, it could not be so easily mended as if pipes had been used.

Respecting the liability of the sureties of Mr Bayliss, the contractor, he had consulted the lawyer town clerk (whose appointment, he submitted, had been a success), and that gentleman said that the council had extended the time without renewing the bonds of the sureties. Thus, it followed that if Mr Bayliss had been worth ten million, they could not have claimed a penny from him.

By a return, he found that 2,385 burgesses would be called upon next Wednesday to vote in the election of Mayor, and he wished it to be known and understood that those burgesses would have to bear the burden and find the money for the payment of nearly half a million, in which the interest was a great proportion.

Where were their nine Councillors and Mayor? Heaping on the agony and taking no steps to alter this unsatisfactory state of affairs. They had an overdraft now of nearly £6,000 on that water supply. The Mayor made the total cost of the work £137,000, but he (Mr Petherick) said it was £170,000, although in a return furnished to the Council by his motion, £28,000 odd had been smuggled out of the amount.

“That,” said Mr Petherick, “ought to open your eyes as to whether the Mayor or your humble servant is speaking the truth.”

Alluding to the Te Aro reclamation, he pointed out that the Mayor had been the prime mover in that matter ever since his election to the Council, but what action did he take when a special meeting of the Council was called to discuss the matter? He had nothing to say about it.

As a matter of fact, his Worship had not done his duty towards the people for the last 12 months, and that was the truth. He had not brought down one single proposal to reduce expenditure; the ratepayers, he thought, would hit him back when he retired by effluxion of time, and therefore he would not make any further reference to that matter.

Mr Petherick said that the Mayor, in his presence, had made a solemn compact to support Arthur Brown as a candidate for the Mayoralty. The Mayor had, however, betrayed his friends, broken his promises and compact, and sent a number of gentlemen round to get up a requisition. That was the way in which he had violated his promises, which was not honourable in any person.

If a public man was not able to keep his promises, then replace him when his time was up. There were such things, continued the candidate, as honour in Parliament, in councils, or in any public bodies; but on Monday evening, he experienced one of the strangest things he ever met with.

One of the corporation employees—an old servant—was laid up for three weeks, and during that time, his pay had been stopped. If he was absent for an hour, in fact, although old and poor, his wages were stopped. On Monday evening, he (Mr Petherick), at a meeting, passed a ticket round the table with a question: Shall we pay this man for the three weeks? Councillors Newman and FitzGerald answered in the affirmative, but other gentlemen replied that they “did not think so.”

Later on, he moved that the man receive three weeks’ wages at 7s per day; it was lost, and the Mayor, for his action in the matter, stigmatised him as making the Council a benevolent institution.

Alluding to the expenditure in connection with the Wainui Waterworks, he said there was one item for ten visits of the City Surveyor, who hired a wagonette and took as a companion another corporation officer, Mr Hewitt. That was charged against the people—visits of the City Surveyor to the caretaker, who had a nice house out there.

For opposing this item, he had been characterised as mean. Another item, charged as “sundries,” was for visits of councillors and ladies to Wainui; and there was also one of £2 3s for refreshments, due to Mr John Maginnity.

These, Mr Petherick said, were small items, but he had been compelled to take up small matters in order to bring out large ones, and he had documentary evidence for all his statements.

In conclusion, he said he had come before the electors at his friends’ request, not of his own seeking, and if returned, he would do his best.

The meeting then proceeded to private business, such as the election of a committee, etc.