South Canterbury Times. FRIDAY, FEB. 27, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2167, 27 February 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. FRIDAY, FEB. 27, 1880.

Tun sad experiences of the Dunedin City Council should operate as a caution to municipal bodies in general. Although essentially a Scottish metropolis, the municipal rulers of Dunedin for many years past have afforded but a sorry reflex of that prudence and economy which is a characteristic of the North Briton. Ever since Sir Julius Yogel made his presence conspicuous in the old Provincial Council, the Fathers of that city have been displaying most improvident and unthrifty habits. In emulation of our sinful national extravagance, they have gone in for city loans bald-headed. They have piled on debentures like bricks and mortar, regardless of the weakness of the foundation on which the pyramid of heavy debt is supported. So long as quarter and half-million loans could be obtained from abroad for the asking* the Dunedin Council have been content to “ eat, drink, and make merry.” Retrenchment has been spoken of frequently, and it has been dangled before the eyes of the canny ratepayers as an inviting bait by successive candidates, but it has never been practised. But all things must come to an end. The extravagant civil feast has collapsed; the financial cupboard lias been thrown open, and the proverbial skeleton —an almost empty treasury stands unbared.

The Councillors arc dismayed, and no wonder. Their revels must cease. Fat salaries and big contracts propped up with borrowed capital have outlived their day. The hand appeared on the wall when Inspector Barnes, more than twelve months ago, descended from his iron chariot —the- steam roller —and took a trip to England. He had become rich —at least he said so—and so had most of the Councillors, particularly the contracting ones; but the Council itself has waxed poor. Dunedin again stands shivering at the door of the London moneylender; the city of pawnbrokers, yet a municipality clothed in rags. The Council has been seized with a sudden fit of economy—not a moment too soon. The wolf, poverty, has rarely caught a city less prepared for such a crisis. Dunedin is full of gigantic works, many of them just begun, and none completed. Her works of water supply are but partially performed, and a water famine threatens the ratepayers ; her drainage system, pursued in a most fragmentary manner, a big sewer here and a small drain there, is so incomplete as to'be in

a worse state than before the “tall” operations were commenced; the town hall is not even as decent a ruin as the Christchurch Cathedral; and her streets, of various widths, have been so often excavated and dug over that they are in a worse state now than they were when the last debentures were issued.

Municipal retrenchment is of course the rage in the Dunedin City Council, and the pilgrim fathers have tucked up their sleeves and gone desperately to work. Eccentric in every thing but that which concerns self-interest,their efforts at economy are peculiar and characteristic. Their Mayor (who is not a contractor) has been cut off with a shilling, and the day laborers—who arc the only employees of the Dunedin City Council that fairly earn their wages —have been nearly all dismissed, while the wages of the few that remain have been reduced from seven shillings to six shillings a day. Yet with a singular display of inconsistenc3 r , while the labour staff of the city has been mercilessly massacred, the officers had been left untouched. Thus we have the spectacle of a municipal workshop absolutely idle for want of funds, and an expensive management retained, running it deeper into debt. Some idea of the folly the positive injustice—of this system of retrenchment, may be formed when we state that the maintenance of the departments of the Dunedin City Council and their official staffs, costs as much as the government of Fiji, or an average American State. The principal officers, who at the best of times should have little to do, and now when public works arc suspended, must be all but idle, receive salaries of £650 downwards, besides very handsome perquisites, in the shape of occasional bonuses for overtime. Why there shouhl be overtime at all, has long been a puzzle to ratepayers and councillors, because the work to be done is never excessive, while the official staff is out of all reason. Red tape, however, flourishes, and woe to the man, be he citizen or Mayor, who endeavors to interfere with it. Mr Leary, a former Mayor, being a skilled accountant, tried to introduce a less cumbrous style of book-keeping in the the Council a year or two ago, and he raised such a hornet’s nest about his ears that he was glad to resign his chair and appeal to the citizens for their sympathy, They endorsed his action, but a majority of the Council stubbornly stood between the officers and clerical reform, and so the red tape was untouched. The work in every department is done in a most prcfunctory way. The clerk, for instance, at the fortnightly meetings, persists in wading through a mass of voluminous correspondence instead of preparing a short summary, and so avoiding a sacrifice of time that is quite unnecessary. Important business in connection with contracts that ought to be done in public is settled privately in committee, and the ratepayers arc actually gagged and blindfolded while their money is being squandered and wasted. For years past the gas engineer was asked to use Greymouth coal, but ho resolutely refused, reporting repeatedly against it, till some of the members of the Council, backed up by public opinion, brought things to a crisis, and finding that he was threatened with suspension and dismissal, he consented to the experiment. The result is, that the city'' is now well lighted with colonial instead of Newcastle coal, and a large saving in cost, as well as an improvement in the quality of the gas, has been effected. We are afraid that the Dunedin City Council, with its various departments, wants a thorough overhauling, and that the abolition of red tape and expensive offices would better answer the purposes of the citizens than the kind of retrenchment that is being pursued.