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COLWYN BAY.

ICONWAY.

Metropolitan Bank.

The Level Crossing at Llandudno…

Corrtoponbenct.

ICOLWYN BAY DISTRICT COUNCIL.

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was proposed by Mr John Roberts, seconded by Mr William Davies, and carried unanimously, that it be a recommendation to the Council to put the Land Clauses Act in force as to the purchase of the Woods." In reference to this, Mr William Davies remarked I am glad to see Mr John Roberts is going in for the Land Clauses Act at last. The Rev J. G. Haworth (severely): I should object to such a remark if I were the Chairman." We cordially agree with Mr Haworth, and we are glad to note that gentleman's out- spoken condemnation both of Mr Wm Davies's totally unnecessary remark and the Chairman's laxity in allowing it to pass unrebuked, and we hail it as a sign that for the future the cooler- headed and graver members of the Council will definitely dissociate themselves not only from remarks of this character, but from support of the utterances of them. It is this sort of hare- brained chatter and exuberant verbosity which is accountable for most of the loss of time and fogginess of work characteristic of the Council as well as for the discreditable ebullitions of temper too frequently manifested at its delibera- tions. We conclude our remarks upon this sec- tion of our subject, with the observation that the whole of the proceedings are a disgrace both to the members guilty of the conduct we have referred-to (who are by no means limited to those we have named) and to the Chairman whose weakness suffers such antics to proceed. Of course we use the word disgrace in respect to the manner in which they performed or failed to per- form the public duty the honour of fulfilling which most of them fought tooth and nail to secure, and which was entrusted to them, by their con- stituents, not so much in the hope as in the assu- rance that they would acquit themselves in the matter with some regard to the necessities of the situation. We have left ourselves little space to deal with the second portion of our subject, namely, the matter of the proceedings at last week's Council meeting, owing to our desire to impress on the minds of the ratepayers the apparently hopeless inability of some of their present representatives of grasping even the most elementary principles of the conduct of public business. We say ap- parently hopeless inability" advisedly, for we have ourselves over and over again not only called attention to this matter, but have explained in minute detail and at wearisome length the A. B.C. of the routine of public business, and that so clearly that we are confident that any boy in the street who chanced to have read our articles on the subject, must have had a very clear con- ception of what ought to be done. Well, the second portion of our remarks is to be devoted to a consideration of the matter of the proceedings at last week's Council meeting, and we wi I con- fine ourselves to the single item of the eternal Cowlyd Water Board question. We are free to confess that it is difficult to resist the impression that there is a total inability to understand this question on the part of those who are continually bringing the matter up month after month. The agitation against the Board, has been going on now for a couple of years, and has resulted in clouds of ambiguous inuendoes against somebody. Who those somebody is (or are), the agitators have not even yet had the courage and honesty to name, while still less have they had the courage and honesty to definitely formulate a definite charge against any member or members of the Joint Board. The Chairman of the Board has replied as well as could possibly be done under the circumstance, to the flight of poisoned arrows which have been hurtling through the air, and to our minds that explanation appeared quite straight- forward. Mistakes were admitted, and the fullest Government Inquiry courted. Neverthe- less, at a meeting of ratepayers subsequently convened, the Rev Thomas Parry (the Chairman of the Council, and a member of the Cowlyd Water Board)delivered a long address bristling with inu- endoes from beginning to end. The address also contained several statements a trifle more definite than inuendoes. With these we dealt in a leading article in these columns a few weeks ago, and, in the course of that article, we invited Mr. Parry to state whether or not he (Mr Parry) voted for or against certain actions of the Joint Board, which, in the address referred-to, he seemed to imply or suggest were actions meriting the severest con- demnation of the ratepayers. Mr Parry has not replied, and our readers are quite at liberty to draw their own conclusions from that fact. Now, at the last meeting of the Colwyn Bay District Council, we find Mr. John Blud bringing the matter up again, and asking "whether the Joint Board has any explanation to give in reference to the grave and serious statements made by Alderman Parry at a town's meeting held at Colwyn Bay on December 27th." Grave and serious fiddlestick Grave and serious state- ments as applied to Mr Parry's wild and misty rhetoric on the occasion referred-to, is good. But does Mr. Blud imagine that anyone else besides himself regards Mr Parry's farrago as a grave and serious statement. ? If he does, we are of opinion that he is mistaken. By the way, it may not be inappropriate here to call attention to a little incident which occurred during the earlier portion of the last Council meeting, namely, the "grave and serious statement" made by Mr. Blud respecting the Rev. W. Venables- Williams's alleged refusal to answer letters addressed to him in reference to a site for an Infectious Diseases Hospital. With extreme gravity and seriousness, Mr Blud made a circum- cumstantial statement on this head, which after- wards turned out to have been wholly unwarranted by fact, inasmuch as the Rev. W. Venables- Williams had not been written-to on the subject. This sort of thing is what fair-minded men call hitting below the belt," and is a contemptible and cowardly abuse of the privileges of debate. Of course Mr Blud at once withdrew any remarks he had made, as soon as he was told that his statement was baseless, but the fact that a gentleman of Mr Blud's position should make such a statement (with its accompanying sneers) in open Council, without having taken the trouble to verify it, is a discreditable one. But to return to the unfortunate Cowlyd Water Board. Mr Blud now appearing in the role of challenger, and as Mr Thomas Parry has neglected to accede to our invitation to formulate definite charges against definitely named persons in this matter, we now beg to ask Mr Blud, on behalf of the ratepayers, What does he mean ? We also beg to invite Mr Blud, failing Mr Thomas Parry, to formulate in definite form any indict- ment he may conceive there is ground for in connexion with the Cowlyd Water Board. Does Mr Blud think (or does he wish to imply) anything more serious against the Board or its officials, than mistakes, errors of judgment? If so, let him make his charge and prove it, and we promise him our fullest and heartiest support. Otherwise, in the name of all that is honest and fair and square (this is plain if not elegant English), let us hear no more about it. Mr Blud, in the course of his remarks, observed that he had hoped to have seen the Chairman of the Cowlyd Board present that day, and to find whether he really had any answer to these charges." What charges? We ask Mr Blud, and our columns are open for his reply.