THE COUNTYS ADVOCATE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume VII, Issue 244, 1 March 1889, Page 2

THE COUNTY S ADVOCATE.

> Our contemporary, the Rangitikei paper, once more endeavors to assert that we are wrong It is difficult, without question, to show to the Editor of fhe Advocate's satisfaction that he is not right, as clearly figures are not in his line, and wisely he refrains from any mention of any sums but our own. In his last attempt to extricate himself from the ■tatement that the Borough was " in financial straits," he quoted our statement, that tf we treated' the indebtedness of the Borough to be the amount owing to the County and Government, and the multiplying of a sum of £18 a year for 25 years, it would then only show that the indetedness could be paid off in fifteen months, and this has so overjoyed him that he writes " But mark how, in his last issue, he hurls the ' lie direct ' in his own face in a manner which shows very little respect for himse'f, for a week before, thus he writes — " The actual position of the two bodies is this, that the gross debt of one (the Borough) could be cleared with 15 months income, &c." In this very issue referred to, we stated that in order to meet bur contemporaries capacity to grasp the difference between the indebtedness of the Borough and the County, we had followed the " clumsy manner ." that the Advocate had adopted to prove the indebtedness of the Borough to be over £900. We showed that no allowance had been made for assets, and also that no one, but a recruit in finance, would have stated that a sum of £18 payable for twenty years, after -which time the debt would be extinguished, would possibly call it *' a debt of £450 of present money," which the Advocate had made it to be. Our assertion has not been upset in the least when we stated that the debt to the Government and ( ounty only amounted, less assets, to £297, whilst the income was equal to double that sum, or to make it quite clear to our contemporary " that the only debt they possess is of an amount equal to one half of its revenue." The Advocate has been worrying along at our figures, quite unable to grasp this simple fact, and we notice that it bas, been careful not to get out of its depth with figures of its own, except when it made the astonishing announcement that the position of the County was that it liad only " an overdraft of £1500." This was the whole answer to our request that it would review the financial position of the two public bodies under discussion. We do not desire to worry the Editor of the Advocate during this summer heat, and we must leave it to his choice, whether he makes the attempt now. or when the weather gets cooler, to explain by his own set of figures, the difference in the financial position between the Borough and the County, and also upon what grounds he described the Borough to be in " financial straits." At present these two points have been overlooked by our esteemed but impetuous contemporary.