DEPOSITS ON ROAD BOARD CONTRACTS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 349, 21 November 1879, Page 2

DEPOSITS ON ROAD BOARD CONTRACTS.

To the Editor of the Akaroa Mail,

Sir, —The impecuniosity of the Akaroa and'Wainui Road Board has been productive of rather a strange, result .to us poor contractors. After our contracts have been passed by the Board's Surveyors, and our accounts also passed by the Board as being correct, and, payable on demand, we are informed that about 7s 6d in the M is all the funds of the Board will at present run to. Well, if .they, will not go more, and the Duxbury embassy' having failed to the Little River Road Board,, as I see 'by the reports of the transactions , of, that Board in the Christchurch papers, I suppose we must wait until something turns tip;-

Btit what, 1 write to you about, Sir, is the fact that, after having done our work and not been paid, the Board still holds our deposits of* 10 per cent on our contracts, because the transaction, we are told, is not closed. Could any body of sensible men take up a more extraordinary position ; because they are not able to pay they impound our deposits. Owing to the dividend paid by the Board being only a part of what is now owing to us, it is of the first importance that our hard cash should be returned to us with which to pay our way. It is strange that gentlemen who manage all their own private business excellently, and are estimable men; in every relation of life, when they are elected members of a public Board, at once lose ]|their.'heads, and nothing seems too absurd for thiMii to dv. What am Ito do, Mr Editor, under the circumstances? Yours, &c, A CONTRACTOR

[Our correspondent seems to be getting up the idea that lie is an injured man. The deposit account for contracts is quite a separate account from the Board's general account, air.i is in no way mixed up with it. We are sure if "Contractor" only applies in the proper quarter he -will have his due. —Ku. A. M.]