be properly investigated by that officer. The committee did not wish to do anything in the way of patronage in which the Council would not fully concur. They did not wish to take anythig into their own hands, but it was absolutely necessary to carry out the proposition before them.

Mr. HAMOND thought the Council owed a debt to Mr. Morrison and the committee for the way in which they had investigated the subject, and also for the report which they had presented to them. With regard to the observations of Mr. Ald. Bell, he certainly thought that the time had now arrived when the Council must take up with a bold hand the entire system under which they had been labouring for so many years. Such an unsatisfactory and expensive system no Corporation could suffer to continue, but it must, as Mr. Bell had properly said, give way to a perfectly new regime. With regard to his remarks as to the adoption of the report reflecting upon any of their officers, he would remind them that all the committee asked was that they should be empowered to give such proper notices, according to the terms under which these different gentlemen might have been appointed, not with the view of dismissal or ceasing to be employed, but for the purpose of placing them on a different and more decisive footing. Those who had served the town would not—and no member of the Council would be disposed -to discontinue their services, but they must have power to begin; and the way to begin was by showing those gentlemen, who had not been doing their duty to them, for which they had been amply repaid, that they must consider themselves free in some measure from serving them any longer. He would like the Council to bear in mind one thing-that the expensive item of salaries, amounting to nearly £2,000-should not be placed against their servants. They could not conceal from themselves the fact that for the last eight or ten years the Finance Committtee had been encroaching far beyond their province, and interfering in an undue measure with the property of the Corporation-in such a way as almost to prescribe what should be done with it. The consequence was that there was a constant clashing between the Finance Committee and the Town Improvement Committee. Every member of the Town Improvement Committee must bear him out in that. (Hear, hear.)

Mr. GREGSON: We make the same charge against you.

Mr. HAMOND repeated that, if the Town Improvement Committee wanted anything done-if a field was to be laid out, or if new streets were proposed for months and months they were powerless in that matter, though that department was one entrusted exclusively to the management of the committee under the direction of the Council, they were clogged and debarred from doing things they ought to do, and placing the town in a most unfavourable position. Years ago they had such a thing as a Corporation Property Committee, and the Finance Committee were really and truly what their name designated. They had the management of the funds of the Corporation, and these funds were correctly and properly distri

1867.J

buted according to the finance report, year after year, adopted by the Council; while the Corporation Property Committee had under their control what they might call "real property," such as the Walker Estate. Bit by bit, however, the Corporation Property Committee had disappeared, and its entire functions had been usurped by the Finance Committee. The consequence would be, that as long as the Finance Committee interfered with the property of the Corporation, there never would be satisfaction with regard to the management of the town. They must prevent their servants from clashing one with another. If they went to Mr. Lamb, what did that gentleman say?" I should be very glad to listen to your suggestions, but that is not the province of the Finance Committee;" and if they went to Mr. Bryson, they were told that the matter did not belong to the Town Improvement Committee. Now, he would like this committee of Mr. Morrison's to hold some interviews with Mr. Ald. Bell, to whom he supposed they were to look for the future as chairman of the Finance Committee, to see whether something could not be done when they had this new regime brought forward and submitted to the Council, by which that committee would interfere less with the internal management of the town, and take care only of its finances, as the Finance Committee should always do, and which had always been so in every other borough but Newcastle-upon-Tyne. (Hear, hear.) The Finance Committee was nothing more or less than simply a committee of ways and means; and the Town Improvement Committee was the committee invariably entrusted with the general and internal management of the borough. Until they altered their present system, there would be continued dissatisfaction expressed outside as to the sums of money uselessly squandered away, and without one single iota of good to those who supplied them with the means. Under a new and better system, however, they would be able to conduct the affairs of the town in a manner not only satisfactory to themselves, but for the benefit of those whose money, to the amount of £70,000, they annually expended.

Mr. HARFORD believed, to a very large extent, Mr. Hamond had put his finger on the evil which had been the cause of a great deal of the mischief which the committee very properly pointed out, but there was another point to which, with great emphasis, he would refer. He said whenever an officer was appointed by the Corporation, with its deliberate sanction, it was the incumbent duty of every chairman of every committee to put that officer in his proper position, and recognise him in such capacity as the office to which he had been elected appointed him. He believed that this setting up of one committee against the decision of the Council, which he regarded as a piece of impertinence, had led to a great deal of the trouble and unpleasantness that they had had to contend with, and of the disgrace to which the Council had been subjected. He believed if Mr. Lamb had been recognised, without any disrespect to Mr. Bryson, as the engineer of the Corporation, by each of the committees, they should have been saved a great deal of that unpleasantness.

Mr. GREGSON: No doubt of it.

Mr. HARFORD believed the Council would do well to give their entire assent to the adoption of the report of Mr. Morrison, with the simple proviso suggested by his friend, Mr. Harle. The only means of dealing with the question was by serving notice of dismissal on the officers of the Council. In doing so, it was not intended that an entire severance from the Corporation should take place, but that course was adopted with the view of having, the officers re-engaged to discharge their duties in such a way as the committee might hereafter suggest. The supreme court was the Council; and when any councillor did not find it proper to recognise their officers, he had far better, as councillor, retire himself.

With the amendment suggested by Mr. Harle as to the appointment of officers, the report was then adopted, and the Council adjourned till the first Wednesday in September.

ADJOURNED MEETING.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1867.

AN Adjourned Meeting was held to-day in the Council Chamber, Town Hall Buildings-the Mayor (Mr. Ald. Hunter) presiding. There were also present-Aldermen Blackwell, Bell, Ridley. and Hedley; Councillors Curry, Burrell. Oliver, John Robinson, Thomas Robinson, Gregson, G. Stewart, Milvain, Thomas Oliver, Harle, W. Stewart, Barkas, Hutchinson, Morrison, Smith, B. Plummer, Stokoe, George Forster, Jonathan Angus, R. B. Sanderson, Tone, Potter, Dove, Mawson, and Clark.

THE MISSION SHIP AT SOUTH SHIELDS.

A letter was read from Mr. Charles Laing, earnestly soliciting a grant towards the construction of a gangway to the mission-ship, Diamond, which was all that remained to make her fittings and arrangements complete, and which would give ready access to her at all times, and enable the sailors and others to go to her services and reading-room with safety during the dark and unemployed nights of winter.

The subject was referred to the Finance Committee.

DICK'S FIRE ENGINE.

The TOWN CLERK read a letter from Mr. George C. Rimington, of 47, Blackett Street, stating that the writer had accepted the agency for the Northern Counties for Dick's patent portable fire engine, and asking the Council to appoint a committee to whom he might show the engine in operation. Circular pamphlets, embodying details and certificates of the performances of the apparatus were placed upon the table for distribution among members of of the Council.

The matter was referred to the Watch Committee.

PARAFFIN OIL STORE.

An application from Mr. J. C. Swan, for a license to store paraffin oil, under the Act of Parliament, at the old gas works near the Manors Railway Station, was referred to the Town Improvement Committee.

ITEMS OF FINANCE.

A petition from Mr. Ralph Humble, for the enfranchisement of property at Ouseburn, was referred to the Finance Committee. Mr. Ald. BELL moved the sealing of a mortgage for the borrowing of £2,000.

Mr. BURRELL seconded the motion.

Mr. MORRISON: What's the rate of interest?

Mr. Ald. BELL: The rate is the most favourable one that we could obtain.

The MAYOR: It is not customary to state that.

The motion was then carried.

Mr. Ald. BELL moved that a lease of ground for 75 years at Willington be granted to Mr. J. B. Falconar, at a rent of £2 10s. Agreed to.

Mr. Ald. BELL moved the adoption of a recommendation of the Finance Committee, that a lease for 69 years be granted to Mr. C. Mitchell, from the 29th September, 1866, at an annual rent of £165, in lieu of three existing leases at a rental of £135. Agreed to.

THE MARKETS.

Mr. Ald. BELL moved that authority be given to Mr. George Robson, market keeper, to enforce the regulations for the vegetable, butcher, and general markets in the place of Mr. George Inness, late superintendent.

Mr. CURRY seconded the motion, which was agreed to.

THE NORTHUMBERLAND BATHS.

The next item on the programme was the report as to the proposed alterations of the Northumberland Baths.

Mr. Ald: BELL asked if it was the wish of the Council that the report should again be read, as it involved a good many figures?

Mr. GREGSON: It will only occupy the time of the Council quite unnecessarily. It will never be carried out.

Mr. Ald. BELL said he should go over the figures in connection with the matter. The original cost of the Baths was £2,000; and since they assumed the occupation of the property they had had to lay out a considerable sum in repairing the Turkish baths, which they migh remember, were burnt down. He believed the cost attending those alterations was from £1,000 to £2,000, from which would have to be deducted the amount received from the Insurance Company, somewhere about £300 or £400, leaving, at all events, close on to £1,500, or £3,500 altogether.