A LOST SUBSIDY.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 514, 1 May 1880, Page 2

A LOST SUBSIDY.

There was lamentation yesterday, at the meeting of the Patea Steam Shipping Company, over a lost subsidy. Why it was lost nobody seemed to know; but all agreed that tho loss was unnecessary, the only difficulty being to determine who was to blame. The missing subsidy has gone the way of the lost tribes of Israel, never to turn up more* And this is how the loss came about. The Government have been paying L3OO a year to the company as a bonus for carrying mails, and the money has to be voted as a part of the appropriations sanctioned by Parliament. To get this vote included in tho Estimates, it is a necessary routine that formal application be made to the Postmaster-General, who includes it in tho charges required for his department of the public service. The company’s manager was in Wellington before the Estimates were presented last session, and he was reminded that the usual application would be necessary to get the Patea mail vote included. The manager reported this to the directors, and they said “ Yes,” and left the matter to tho manager, without placing any instruction or record on their minutes. The manager forgot to take action,' and so the matter remained. When the other votes had passed through Parliament, the directors in Patea awoke to the fact that they had not got their usual subsidy. .Then they instructed the manager to write, and the manager did write with vigorous promptitude. But it was too late. It was like trying to cross the harbor bar when the tide is ont. Too lute for a vote ; therefore no subsidy. Now who is to blame ? One shareholder pointed ont yesterday, that it was hardly tho manager’s duty to take on himself to apply fora subsidy without express instruction in the form of a resolution of directors. This appears to us a correct view of the difficulty. There should'have been a minute of instruction, but there wasn’t. Tho manager confesses the blame was ibis in not . remembering the interests of the company. We would suggest that the original mistake consists in the absence of business method, in not recording a resolution for the manager’s instruction.