A GRIEVANCE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 477, 9 June 1871, Page 3

A GRIEVANCE.

(to THE EDITOR OF THE DUNSTAN TIMES) Sir :—ln one of your late issues I read, with pleasure, a letter from a deputy Returning Ofiicer, complaining of the nonpayment of the demands on the Treasury for the fees and expenses connected with the late elections j and, as we have now another Executive in office I hope you wil call attention, through the columns of yon r paper, to the injustice of prolonging the payment of deputy Returning Officers and Poll Clerks, as to many of them the delay is a matter of great consideration. When gentlemen were selecte l to fill (he before mentioned offices they were hurried away, on ail understanding that they would he paid, as on former occasions, all reasonable expenses. Vouchers are sent in, every excuse is made by the Returning Officer in Dunei ia to evade-payment, and a demand is now made that for every item of expense that has 1 cut paid cut of the pocket of the unfortunate officer, (who has in many instances been three or four days away from his business, who has crossed punts, and hired horses, and been put to many expenses in travelling to and acting In polling booths in remote and monn tainous districts) that he should furnish receipted bills in duplicate. Now, sir, an intimation hj ing given that such should have been required, the instructions could have been easily complied with ; but now it is simply a matter of impossibility, as, in many cases, ho less than a distance of seventyfive or eighty miles Would have to be again travelled over. Hoping that you will find space to call the attention of the Executive to the justice of causing prompt payment to bo made in all matters connected with the la e Elections. • I remain, Sir, Another deputy Returning Officer. May 31st 1371.