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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3134, 14 July 1881, Page 2

Ma R. Macalister, ■- Provincial District Auditor," who, in the discharge of duties unnecessarily assumed by the General Government, periodically audits the accouuts of the several local governing bodies, has received a well-merited rap over tbe knuckles from the Waipawa County Council. Mr Macalister, in his report on the accounts of that body, refers to " the amount of rates alleged to be outstanding as being "exceptionally large." The committee appointed by the Council to report upon the auditor's memorandum very properly remark that "the amount of outstanding rates does not appear to your committee to be a matter within the auditor's province." The auditor also reports concerning the accounts of the Council that " the documents submitted for examination and audit were found to have been kept in so lax a condition as to render their examination a work of considerable time and trouble." The Clerk of the Council replies in a letter to the Council as follows:—"Of the three days he (the auditor) remained in the district about six hours may have been occupied in tbe Council office. On the second evening, I with great reluctance, allowed him to take certain books and documents with him to his hotel, and on the third day he was away by the 10 a.m. train to the Seventymile Bush." Mr Macalister gets £500 a year for running about the colony doing work that could be every bit as efficiently performed by local accountants. Napier is now being visited by another General Government auditor, Mr Tisdall, who, under the title of Travelling Inspector, gets £250 a year, in doing work that might just as well have been done by Mr Macalister, when he was up here. In addition to Mr Macalister there are five travelling inspectors attached to the Audit Department; and there were three auditors for local bodies attached to the Treasury Department, but as two have been dispensed with recently Mr Macalister has now to put himself to " considerable time and trouble" to do the work for which an ungrateful country pays him five hundred a year and travelling expenses.