COUNTY AFFAIRS.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 974, 20 December 1882, Page 2

COUNTY AFFAIRS .

| - TO TEE EDITOR-■ ! Sir, —Such indifference evinced by the [ ratepayers of this County in respect of the I Council’s financial management, etc., can never be the wa} T to defer a recurrence of the like in the future, but will, instead, invite such in plentj r . Had there been any supervision whatever from any one of the councillors, had any one of them pressed for the production of the clerk’s accounts, these said to be irregularities could not have happened. Has it not passed some of the councillor’s lips these many months, that the clerk’s work was somehow adrift and not attended to ? What must be thought of the frequent carpings of the choicest of these councillors, one who would wish to be thought the paragon of every high moral preception ? When, in remonstration, he was challenged in reference to his best endeavours to deprive one local body within the County of its legal rights, he announces in lofty style that it was for the County he worked and supervised," not for hamlets, &c. How ranch at present can we value such rodomontading ? Is there any excuse for allowing these defections? Can there be the plea of inexperience ? No. Recall the circumstances surrounding the Wairoa Highway Board’s loss of some £BO, and not forgetting, too, the Council’s dog tax loss of yore, and this, I hold, should have been experience abundant. However, this boasting about supervision is none other than an insult to any intelligent ratepayer when such proceedings have been allowed as have recently been brought to light by the Government Auditor, and Which are now glaring in our eyes, and appealing to our pockets. Of these one hundred and more summonses how many will of necessity pay twice from loss of the niggardly small receipts issued? Why have not the present investigations been run before now to a termination. The ratepayers should demand full knowledge of what has transpired, and drag it into daylight.—l am, etc., Ratepayer. Waverley, Dec. 13.