THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. WEDSESEAY, MARCH 28, 1877.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2566, 28 March 1877, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. WEDSESEAY, MARCH 28, 1877.

A letter has been written to. the. New Zealand" Herald in which the writer proposes that the County Councils should do away with the necessity which seems to exist of raising money by lean, and consequently paying interest;; on it, by issuing paper money which he calls County scrip. The advantage of being.able at any time to raise money for purposes which though necessary have to be neglected for want of funds is obvious. It is .certainly in* creased when in addition to being able to raise such sums; as are required (in moderation) no interest has to be paid for the accommodation; and, no doubt,' if the plan were feasible it could be .made to apply to other corporate bodies besides County Councils ; the question is, is it feasible ? The writer id the Herald seems to think that paper can be used as a circulating medium as well as gold, and in one i sense he is right, as the issue and circu- ! lation of £1 notes in New Zealand —which 1 are received' as legal tenders just as readily as gold—shows. He argues in this way. The County amongst other things is dependant on rates for its in- , come; with these rates it pays its laborers, officers, &c. Why should it not'give them paper Id stead of gold, on the understanding that the paper would be received by it again instead of gold in payment of rates when these are due? Thus the writer has it that the contractor should be paid by, the County Treasurer with these County scrip; these scrip could be paid to the. laborers and the merchants, who in turn could pay them to fie farmer, tradesmen, &c, and these "being householders could- vpay^them in lieu of rates to the County Council," far fee by them torn up, and new ones 7'ssued. The scheme, he says, is a simple one. It certainly is—very— butis it pfacticable ? Of course the first objection raised .against such a system would be that those to whom money was owing might object to receive the County scrip. This difficulty the advocate of the system is prepared to get over by the somewhat summary process of making the scrip a legal tender. In what light Parliament would look' on such a.measure remains to be seen when the question is brought before them, if that should ever happen; but "suppose that this difficulty were overcome, and that a piece of paper promising to pay •£l, and signed by the proper County officials, was as much a legal tender as a £1 note, how would the matter then stand ? If the scrip were to have any value at ail there must be funds to take it up when presented, otherwise it would be, of no value at all. How are these funds to be obtained except by loan ? The writer says the scrip must be passed on from hand to hand until it is returned again to the Council in lieu of rates, but first of all it must be remembered that everybody does not pay rates, and in the second that those who do might very easily accumulate far more County scrip than would suffice to pay their rates due. For instance, a tradesman having a shop rated at £40 a year'would, at 5 per ceut.» pay £2 in rates, but the same man might be supplying with cheese, butter, &c, or any- of these articles the proposer of County scrip payments mentions, a dozen or twenty men, who, engaged in contract work, would wish to-pay him the County scrip which they have received from the contractor, and he from the County Treasurer. What is he to. do ? He might be doing business with them to the amount of £5 a week easily enough; is he to take all their scrip, until at the end of the year he has £260 worth of it to pay a rate only amounting to £2 ? Is he to lose £258, or will ..the County give him cash for. the scrip ? < If they wiil, how can they if they have no capital. Again it must be remembered that a noto can always be realised ; could the same be said of County scrip, or could amancome with twenty scrip in hand to the County Treasurer and ask for cash. If not, and it is quite evident he could not, it follows that he must hold the scrip over until the rates ' are collected, supposing he gets paid even .then ; j a serious inconvenience to some people, as a man might be paid for work done a few weeks after he had paid his rates and have to keep the scrip, which to him is money, lying idle for perhaps months. These are some of the chief objections to a scheme

which will not raise its propounder to the rank of Law, Paterson or numerous other successful financiers.