BOROUGH FINANCE.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 353, 5 December 1879, Page 2

BOROUGH FINANCE.

To the Editor of tlie Akaroa Mail.

Sir, —From the wording -of " The Municipal Act, 1876," it is not quite clear whether the half-yearly accounts of Boroughs are required to be published or not. From the "extraordinary interest which attaches to the document laid before the last meeting, and which took the Treasurer of the Borough 51 days to produce, I, with many others, think the Council might stretch a point and publish it. At any rate, the special committee appointed at last meeting should publish their report brought down to date, as we have drifted two months away from the 30th September. If I understand the Auditors' report aright, a balance of some £8 was in the Treasurer's hands on the 30th Sept. (day of balance), and still remained so till 20th Nov. (day of audit). Ido not for a moment saj r that the Treasurer or his sureties are not responsible persons for a hundred times the amount, but the proceeding is at least irregular, and has borne fruit in the refusal of the Bank to further accommodate the Council. When a banker sees a merchant conduct his business loosely he immediately puts on the screw, and this, I under.-tand, the Chairman of the Finance Committee finds in his visits to the local sweating-room. It is really wonderful what faith in other men's stupidity will do, but faith is at last lost in sight, and it will be found by a reference to the Act and the Calendar that Saturday, 4th October, wa9 the last possible day the sum in question could be in anybody's hands unless in the hands of the Council's Bankers. The 117 th sectior of the Act allows the Council to direct at what times moneys shall be paid to their account during a week, but Parliament says that every person, receiving moneys on behalf of a Corporation " shall in any case on the Saturday in each week so pay into the Bank all such moneys then in his hands." I trust that the report of the Finance Committee, like that of the Retrenchment Committee, will not be stillborn, but that it will be searching land corapl »te, and so allay uneasy feelings in the minds of ratepayers. . j Yours, &c, / ■ ' \ANOTHI_R RATEPAYER.