MR THYNNE AND THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume II, Issue 78, 25 May 1880, Page 2

MR THYNNE AND THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN.

From our report of the County Council proceedings on Wednesday last, it would be seen that Mr E. S. Thynne had forwarded a letter to the Council, protesting against a rite being struck Jn the Estimates aa passed ; and that the County Chairman (Mr JVlucarthur) read a lengthy memorandum in reply to Mr Thynne's letter. Subjoined will be found the correspondence referred to, which wo were unuble to publish in List issue, owing 1 to tho lateness of the hour at which the meeting took place:— MR. THYNNK'S LETTBIt. " By an advertisement in the newspapers 1 see that you have caused it to be publicly notified that it is the intention of the Council to strike a general rate of one shilling in the £ on the annual value of the rateable properties within the County, at the next meeting of the Council, on tie 20th May next. As the County Act requires that before making any rate an estimate shall be prepared of the proposed expenditure of the Council during the period for which the rate is to be made, showing any sums already available for such purpose, the additional sura required, the total rateable value of rateable property on the valuation roll, and the rate thereon necessary to raise the money required, I beg most respectfully to protest against any rate being struck on the day proposed, and upon the estimates as published, on the following grounds, viz.: -1. That the Estimates do not show the proposed expenditure during the period for which the rate is to be made, viz , from tho Ist April last to the 31st March, 1881, as certain debit and credit balances are shown up to the 30th April. 2. That in no column is shown c the total rateable value of rateable property on the valuation roll, and the rate thereon necessary to raise the money required.' This information is only to be obtained by inference. 3. That upon a calm consideration of the Estimates they cannot be accepted as accurate, or as satisfying the requirements of the Act, as the various debit and credit balances are brought out incorrectly, and therefore the reliance to be placed on the statement that a shilling rate is necessury is not truly shown. For instance, the County Expenditure is totalled wrong, and also that for the Manchester Riding. The revenue for the Kiwiteu Riding is incorrect by £10. Tie Taonui expenditure is also incorrect, by £177 10s.; the Oioua revenue by £1; and thu revenue for the Awahou Riding is more by £10 than represented. As I have no desire to impede the working of the County, I have the honor to request you to take such necessary stops, by calling a special meeting of the Council, to reframe the present year's Estimates, so that no one will be able to object to pny the proposed rates. And I would beg leave further to point out that the rate book is not legally a rate book, as required by the Act, from not having been eigned by three Councillors, Clause 40 of the Rating Act declaring ' that the rate book is open for inspection as herein provided,' and Clause 41 shows how it is provided— viz , signed by not less than three members, and kept in some place to bo (after signing) publicly notified, for inspection." THE CHAIRMAN'S BEPLY. " Councillors will have noticed that this meeting has been called either to strike the rate of one shilling in the £ notified since last meeting, or to approve estimates as recast. Mr Thynne's letter, just read, was received by me on the snme day that the notices calling a meeting for the 20th were required to be f-ent ; and not having time to thoroughly examine the grounds on which his objections were founded, and judging by the assurance with which Mr Thynne asked me in his letter to call a special meeting to undo all that had been done at one meeting on the 3rd May, I was led to imagine that his objections were more firmly grounded than after-consideration has led me to believe. A special meeting of the Council can only be called by requisition of the Chairman, or any three councillors, delivered to the Clerk, in writing, and therefore I would have been unwarranted in granting Mr Thynne's reqnest without better grounds than those shown. In order that no delay might take place if hi« objections were found to be substantial, I caused the clause about approving Estimates as recast to be iuserted in the notices. I have hitherto scrupulously refrained from attacking, since he left the Council, any of the weak points of Mr Thynne's administration as Chairman ; but -it is, I think, now necessary — in order that the members of this Council may be enabled to judge cf his qualifications as a critic— that I should point out that tho rate book for 1877 78, made under Mr Thynue as Chairman, was never legally sl!ed uj Though tigned, no heading was ever put to it showing the date on which the rate was made, the period for which the rate w»a strack, or any of the particulars required iv the heading by the Oth Clause of the Hating Act, except those printed. It is well known also to those who have been councillors under Mr Thynne's chairmanship, and it is on record among the documents of this Council, that scarcely a balance-sheet was parsed by the auditor during his terra of office without strong adverse memoranda by that official commenting on the inaccuracies and omissions for which Mr Thynne, as chairman, and one of the signatories to the balance-sheet, w«.re directly responsible ; and on my coming into office I found that thare was an absolute refusal on the part of the auditor to pass the last yearly balance sheet of the Council, because just oomplaiuts of his had been answered i;i an unsatisfactory manner. Two blacks do not make a white, and in thus exposing the laches of Mr Thynne, I must not be understood as excusing myself for any illegality in the mode of preparing the Estimates. I should have been the last to mention any of Mr Thynno's deficiencies had not he thrust himself forward to give his interpre tation of the Acts by which we are guided, and to demand that we should at once act upon bia interpretation. With on a excep tion — the clerical errors in some of the totals — I think I shall succeed in showing the Council that Mr Thynne's inteipretation is wrong, and that the work preparatory to striking the rate has been done in a manner more nearly approaching to the spirit and intention of the C^unlies Act than under Mr Thynne's regime, and that to follow his advice now, anJ reverse our work, would only bo to lead us into technical difficulties. I would also remind Councillors that though Mr Thynne rannot reply to me in this Council, he can, and probably will do so, through the Press, and that therefore I must not be cousidered as attacking him where he has no chance of defending his views. I will not proceed to answer Mr Tbynne's objections one by one, and it will help Councillors to arrive at a more thorough understanding of the points in question, if they have a Rating Act, 1876, and a Counties Act before them, for reference. " 1. The Counties Act requires that an estimate be prepared of the proposed expenditure during the period for which the rate is struck. " Keeping strictly to the wording of the Act, it is evideut that expenditure actually made before the Estimates are prepared cannot be considered in any sense of the word to be proposed expenditure, nor is it

necessary to estimate an amount/which is actually fixed by being previously paid, and is therefore a surer guide to the expenditure for the period to which it relates than any estimate, however skilfully prepared, oould possibly be. as*,^ •~ N " N " " The correctness of this assertion torniVH upon the true definition of the meaning ox^^H Valuation 8011. Mr Thynne evidently^^' maintains that the compilation of the various rolls of Local Boards, Highways Boards, and wards ofjHighways Boards is the valuation roll meant by the Rating Act, and therefore by the Counties Act (see interpretation clauee, Counties Act.) I, however, cliff t with Mr Fhynne on this point. The 30th clause of the Rating Aot says : — 'The valuation list so signed, or so corrected and signed, shall be the valuation roll for the district,' &c. ; and clause 6 of the same Act says, ' That where a district is divided into subdivisions, a separate valuation list shall be made of all the rateable property in each subdivision, instead of one suoh list for the whole district, subdivision being defined as a riding of a county, road of a borough, or any subdivision of any distriot for the purpose of the election, of members of the local body.' " The 65th clause of the Bating Aot sots forth that when two bodies are entitled to rate in the same distriot, only one valuation shall be in force on whioh rates oan be recovered ; and it is a defeot in the Aot that the County is thus prevented from making its own valuation roll for each Riding (the County subdivision for electoral purposes.) The County being thus forced into adopting the valuation lists prepared by tho other local bodies, the boundaries of whose sub. divisions are not necessarily coterminous with those of thf> Ridings, the County oan. - not put itself in strict accordance with the Rating Aot by having a separate valuation j list for each Hiding, but when fhowing the total rateable value on the valuation roll or rolls, as mus» be the case aocording to clause 6 of the Rating Act, quoted above, in the County of Manawatu, subdivided into Ridings as it is, I have, as far as pos- , : sible, put the Estimates in haimony with clause 6 of the Rating Act, by showing the ' total rateable value for each subdivision or Riding of the County, as oompiled from the various valuation lists of the local bodies. The Counties Act does not appeal to me to contemplate the formation of a County roll at all, as the 40th and following clauses of tho Act, which relate to the preparation of the roll of County electors, direct that that roll shall be compiled, from the valuation rolls of road districts ; ' and only in the case of outlying districts— i.e., districts outside the boundaries of any highway district — or road dial riots which have neglected to prepare a valuation roll, is i c directed that valuations should be mada . by the County, and then only for the pur- *■ pose of determining the number of votes to which any holder of property is entitled. "In each Riding's estimate of revenue and expenditure, a shilling rate on the rateable value thereof is shown to be necessary to raise the money required for the execution of the works set forth in the Estimates. This is plainly shown, and is not by any means a matter of iuference, as Mr Thynne asserts. Mr Thynne's mistake as to what a valuation roll shonld be as defined by the Rating Act is the more remarkable, as tbe first valuation roll of the Manchester Highways Board, which he assisted to prepaid, was rejected by the judge of the Assessment Court, on the ground that a separate list had not been prepared for each ward. " With regard to the incorrect totals b: ought out I may explain that in prcpar-^i ing tbe estimates I copied out the totals as they stood on the rough draft. Some items appear in the rough draft which were struck out of the Estimates, and I inadvertently omitted to alter the totals to correspond. As the items explain themselves these errors are obvious, and are not likely to mislead any one- The haste in which I was compelled to prepare the Estimates mast be my apology for these mistakes, and it ia for the Council to decide whether a mere clerical error shall bo allowed to invalidate the Estimates. With respect to these errors I may also state that even when corrected, the sum required to be made up by a rate very much exceeds the amount that the highest legal rate of Is in the £ will produce, and therefore tho incorrectness of these totals can in no way affect the question of. tbe amount of rate necessary for this year, which must under any circumstances be the highest possible to enable us to execute the works set forth in the Estimates, and to meet our engagements. " Our payments will be heavy for the next two months, and it is a matter of urgeuoy , to get the rate struck as soon as possible, at we are overdrawn some £600 at the present moment when all our ohequesare presented. " Mr Thynne's argument about the rate book being invalid because unsigned will not hold water. Clauses 40 and 41, iuter- M* preted according to Mr Tbynne's letter, conflict with the 6th schedule, whioh prescribes the form of rate book to be used. As the local body notifies its intention to strike a rate at least twelve days before making it, the Aot cannot be meant to require the throe signing members of the local body to sign the ratebook showing the rate as actually struck a fortnight before the resolution of the local body striking the rate is passed. The intention and spirit of the Act evidently is, that the rate book - shall be open for inspection from the time that tbe local body notifies its intention to strike the rate, but that in the interval elapsing between such notification and the striking of the rate the rate book is an incomplete document, and as suoh not signed. : I admit that the Aot is contradictory, as it Rays that the ratebook is open for inspection as herein provided, but unless the signing be deferred until after the resolution striking the rate is passed, members of the local body might possibly sign and represent to tho public that a rate was struck whioh might never come into operation through a change of opinion on tbe part of tho • Counoil. " The usual sours© has been followed ia * leaving tbe ratebook unsigned until the * rate has been actually struck — a course fol- # lowed ty Mr Thynne himself when Chairman, and so far as I can learn by local bodies generally, and one consonant with the common sense interpretation of the Rating Act. " Clause 43 of the Bating Act provides that no appeal shall be allowed against any part of the rate, except as provided by Clause 42 ; and Clause 44 provides * that the rate book so signed shall, unless the "" contrary be proved, be evidence in all courts of the contents thereof, and that the same has been made in accordance with the pro-, visions os the Rating Aot.' Clause 61 further says: "The invalidity of any .rate as a , whole shall not prevent the recovery oTthe v ■'-■ rate appearing on the rate book to bevvy- > . i ' * able by auy person.' These claofesJftHkg^tf go to show that it is the intention 9^^^^| Aot that no technical defeot in thei^^^^H pretation of the Act, when taking the^^^^^fl preliminary to striking a rate, shall P*^^^^H the local body from suing and reoov^^^^H rates, and that therefore there is np^^^^H quate reason for rejecting soy inter^^^^H tion to follow what is, to say the least^^^^H the more doubtful interpretation /v^^^^H Thynne. £-^^^^^1 "On the above grounds 1 have d -^^^^^M

n to prepare* fr^eh Estimates, unless distinctly Instructed to do so by ihe Council, and I shall now ask some member to move that n rate of Is in the £ be struck, in accordance with the notioe."