The Telephone. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, JUNE 3.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 147, 3 June 1884, Page 2

The Telephone. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, JUNE 3.

The proverbial ingratitude of the public was again fully demonstrated by the result of the polling for the election of two Borough Auditors for the ensuing year, which closed last evening. For many reasons we wish the result had been otherwise. In the first place, it will undoubtedly have a tendency to act with a deterrent effect against the display of any wholesome inquisitiveness, which might result in similar troubles to those lately witnessed in the case of Messrs. Cresswell and Dunlop v. the Borough Council. When referring to this subject upon a previous occasion we gave it as our opinion that, either the auditing of the Borough accounts had previously been looked upon and carried out in the light of a simple formality, or else the auditors for 1883-4 had carried out their duties in a most conscientious and painstaking manner. Without casting any reflections whatever upon gentlemen who have previously held the responsible position, we cannot doubt but what the latter is the case. The present manner of electing auditors is far from satisfactory, as we have no guarantee whatever as to their fitness or even capacity for efficiently carrying out the important functions with which they are entrusted. The necessity for some judicious and strict supervision over our public accounts has been too frequently demonstrated of late to need any cases in point being mentioned outside our own district. Take the case of the defaulter Williams in the Wairoa the other day. When a man of this stamp can successfully carry on a system of wholesale pillage and falsification which is only put a period to by his levanting, we conceive that it is high time that the State took some efficacious steps to remedy this evil. Indeed, we do not see how it is possible to get thoroughly independent local auditors where interests are so conflicting and where the ramifications of trading inferences extend to such remote matters as they do in this town. Government will undoubtedly have to step in and supply a want which from its very nature must be dealt with by an independent power superior to and entirely beyond the control and influence of our bodies local.