PUBLIC MONEY.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 440, 12 June 1902, Page 2

PUBLIC MONEY.

(To the Editor of the Times)

Sir, —“A benevolent man will weigh even the grounds of his liberality,” says a well-known writer, and I think that this fittingly applies to the Cook County Council, Harbor Board, and Borough Council, who at their last meeting voted the sum of .£3OO to provide a band rotunda or other costly ornament for Gisborne. Can any one of the three bodies afford to be so liberal ? Let us take them seriatim, dealing first with the County Council, of whom it is stated that owing to that body discharging its maintenance men and the impassable stats of the roads, Mr W. McKinley’s Wairoa-Morere coach has discontinued running during the ensuing winter. This is a nice state of affairs for a Council that can afford to vote £SO towards a hand rotunda for Gisborne. Then come to the Harbor

Board, of whom, it may in all truth be said, “ They do not give, they throw away,” and I do not call a man liberal because he is angry with money which is not his own. Lastly, we come to our City Council, and one has only to go out of the main street to see how badly the gutters and footpaths of the other streets require attention. Why, in some cases, the drains are so filled with rubbish and grown over with weeds, that you cannot follow the drain. In all conscience, therefore, let us devote our Coronation funds to something practical, even if it be an Old Men’s Home.—l am, etc., 150N00.A5T.