THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN'S OPENING SPEECH.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1404, 30 January 1873, Page 2

THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN'S OPENING SPEECH.

[WELLINGTON INDEPENDENT.] The newly elected Chairman of the County of Westland in his opening speech stated that the liabilities of the County amounted to L 46,679, but that only L 13,769 of this sum pressed for immediate settlement and for which means i would have to be provided. He suggested two courses, either to limit the expenditure and pay the debt gradually, or apply to the General Government for assistance. He believed the former course, though tedious, was practicable. We admire the pluck and simplicity of the new Chairman, but there can be no doubt that the County is at present quite unable to meet its engagements. During the last two years the revenue from all sources has sufficed to do little more than defray the ordinary expenses of government and pay interest upon the Bank overdraft and the debt due to Canterbury, and usually the subsidies to the hospitals are months in arrear. The County now commences another year with a debt of 147,673, with a revenue which will not equal that of the previous year, and which by the suicidal act of some of its representatives in the Assembly has been lessened L3OOO by the reduction of the gold duty. The public departments have been cut down to the last point of attenuation, and any further important reduction of expenditure is out of the question. To add to the difficulties of the position, some forty miles qf road

recently constructed by the General Government will in a few months fall into the handa of the County authorities for maintenance, for which no provision appears to have been contemplated. This will add from L3OOO to L4OOO a year to the other expenditure — a sum which the County has not got to spend. As to applying to the General Government for assistance, as Southland did of old, we can see no other course open ; and if that appeaLis made it would be a good opportunity of bringing abo Tit a re-union of the County with Canterbury, as Southland has rejoined Otago. The desirability of such a course is made all the stronger from the fact that whilst Westland is paying eleven or twelve thousand a-year for the interest upon the Canterbury loans — the price at which the County purchased its separate political existence — and is head and ears in debt, Canterbury is overflowing with wealth which it scarcely knows how to expend.