THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY. WEDNESDAY. & FRIDAY. MONDAY, MAY 1, 1922. BOROUGH ECONOMY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4408, 1 May 1922, Page 2

THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY. WEDNESDAY. & FRIDAY. MONDAY, MAY 1, 1922. BOROUGH ECONOMY.

Recently the position of th 3 finances of Paeroa Borough were briefly referred to in these columns ; that brevity, precluding the statement of details, possibly conveyed an impression unfavourable to the administration of past borough councils, prior to three years ago. However, we intimated that we hoped to deal with the matter more fully at a favourable opportunity. The busy time due to the visit of the Minister of Public Works to the district having passed, we can now pay attention to a purely borough ' concert). The position, then, is that at the 31st of March 1919, the debit balance on the general account was £3302 12s Id, to which must be added a substantial sum, sundry creditors £751 5s 2d, and an amount owing by the general account to the £6OO loan account, of £57 3s 6d, making a total debit of £4lll 0s 9d at March 31, 1919. Against this debit there were collectable credits of approximately Yll3O, and an amount advanced in connexion with a loan of £ll3B 7s. The collection of these outstanding credits, and the refund on the loan account, after the raising of the loan, assisted in the reduction of the debt accordingly. v But after making all legitimate allowances, it is still very apparent that the affairs of the borough _ have been managed with commendable economy, and that the policy' so strenuously fought for by the chairman of the finance committee (Cr. W. Marshall), and supported by a majority of the present and the immediately preceding council and Mayor, has proven itself the right one. Traversing the financial statement, we come across a few items that must have been distinctly' discouraging to the finance committee. For instance, the Waihou and Ohinemuri Rivers Commission, and that of the Thames Harbour Improvement Scheme, has mulcted the borough in £2Ol 4s Id, in the last balance-sheet; while it is obvious that it would have been grossly unwise in the long run not to have been represented at these commissions, nevertheless that expenditure, for the present at any rate, must be considered as entirely non-reproductive, and a lessening of the Council’s spending power on public works or debt re’duction to that extent. It is noticeable, too, that there is a debit of £139 17s 4d on the Domain account ;?,it may be possible, by raising fees, to decrease this liability another year, but there is a limit above which the fees cannot go without checking the demand for the use of the Domain and so defeating the purpose of increases in fees. The bank charges, £39 7s 3d, are reassuringly light.. The' street lighting account shows a clear credrt of £67, and the water account £132, the latter after paying off £3OO on account of purchase from the Ohinemuri County Council, and allowing £5O proportionate allowance for administration expenses. A hospital rate of Hd will be necessary this year, but as there was none at all last year, and the dues have exceeded the previous call by £139 4s 4d. there is nothing here to comnlain of. seeing that ..the hospital contribution is beyond the power of the Council to regulate.

Of course, it may be said that the Council has starved maintenance of roads and footpaths in its zeal for economy; this is

to some extent true, for our main street, from the Criterion bridge to Station Road, and the footpaths on either side, are in an abominably bad condition for a town having some pretension to progress; this highway is not only a source of expense and inconvenience to those using it, the pot-holes in the solid metal or bituco surface being hard on vehicle springs, and the footpaths most unpleasant lor pedestrians, but it is also a distinctly bad advertisement for the town. It is gratifying to know that the works committee has in hand the matter of improving the principal roads and footpaths. But ad-, mitting that maintenance had to be sacrificed to some extent, this was after all the defect of a virtuous policy.- The Council acted with foresight and prudence in adopting a policy of economy, and the subsequent financial stringency, which put so many local bodies into difficulties, shewed that the Paeroa Borough Council was indisputably right in its financial policy. Some people thought—but probably have now changed their opinion—that the Council should have increased its overdraft in order to secure money for reading and footpath repairs, but seeing that the rate of interest was as high as 7 percent., the Council would have been extremely unwise to go head over ears in debt again, especially as loan mpney would sooner or later be available at 4| per cent., plus 1 per cent, sinking fund, which would liquidate the debt in due course, while a higher rate of. interest on an overdraft would'hot reduce the debt by one penny-piece. Moreover, the vicious principle of carrying a heavy burden of overdraft. recognised by the. Council, has since been the subject of a new Bill by the Legislature; the Council has actually anticipated 'in its own action a policy* enforced some three years later by the Legislature of the Dominion, in the form of the Local Bodies’ Finance Act, which prevents a local body, during the year, from having an overdraft greater than two-thirds of-the previous year’s revenue, and also from having an overdraft at the end of March of more than the amount of the uncollected revenue for that year. In other words, the Government insists (with.a paternal blessing oh banking institutions) that all local bodies shall do what thePaeroa local governing body has been doing during the last few years; namely, live within their incomes. Moreover, the Council might well have followed the procedure of many other local bodies, who lumped the whole of their liabilities under the “antecedent liability” clause, using the power the law gives of raising a rate, without taking a poll of the ratepayers, to clear off the debt. But the finance committee steered clear of this alluring lotusland, ,and has in every way run clean and straight and with prudent economy. Some hard things have been said of the Council, or individual members of it, at different times, but a dispassionate survey of available data leads an unbiassed investigator to the conclusion that whatever its shortcomings may be, the Paeroa Borough Council, during the present and the previous term (the majority of the councillors who stood being re-elected) has carried on the administration in the spirit of the following' dictum, applicable to the individual, a local body, and the nation- alike :

“Learn to say, Ayith- sonorous tones and emphasis, 'I do not know( and I cannot afford it’ ; then,-when you say, 'I do know, and I can afford it,’ men will believe you.”