Untitled

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 2965, 16 July 1891, Page 2

We arc ill rcceipt of the report of the Commission appointed to enquire into the working of tlie Public Trust Office, and in the whole course of n long experience of wasteful extravagance, in connection with Governmental expenditure, it has rarely been our lot to witness such an one as tliat under review. £5,250 of the taxpayers' money has been spent by Mr J. M. Larnach and his two confreres in elucidating a fact that any competent accountant could have demonstrated in at le.J.st a month, and would have esteemed himself well paid at £100 in doing. Seven thousand eight hundred and ninety-thrve questions have been put to witnesses, and about 200 pages uiore have been devoted to correspondence with the various agents of the ottice, not to mention a highly creditable example of the printers' art showing a not very creditable specimen of bookkeeping, and all this effort and expenditure has been incurred to demonstrate that which eycryoue who took the slightest interest in the thing knew long ago —viz., that the work of the office had far out-grown its proportions as originallj intended. It is only just to Mr Haniertou to say that ho recognised this long ago, and that the Commission had been tardily granted liiui after repeatea applications and remonstrances on his part. We, in common with the Commissioners, have no sympathy with those officials who bought watches and jewellery belonging to intestate estates at auction, and think it illadvised on their part, to say the least; but we also consider the information —-valuable, as it is no doubt—dear at £5,250. Stress was also laid upon the fact that losses had been made in the lending department of the office, but taking into consideration the experience of other and better officered institutions during the late peiiod of depressed values of property, wc think the Public Trust Office has been exceptionally fortunate in its investments; and after all this pow wow, there does not appear to have been one single instance of malversation of the Trust funds. It is, of course, quite true that the expenditure of this £5,250 has been the moans of unearthing a pbee of lace out of the pigeon holes of the chief clerk, who no doubt should have known better, and whose perceptions of the requirements of his office seem to have been of the haziest, which fact alone, without any other, should liavo been sufficient evidence to the Commissioners to have prompted them to have recommended his retirement. This knowledge, stripped of its verbiage, is practically "all the tax-payer lias in return for £5,250, and, in our opinion, the information could have been got for £5000 less. A Nasmyth hammer lias been used to crack a nut. Mr Humeri on asked for better facilities in order to do his work, and all that Mr Larnach has done is to discredit a. useful institution in the eyes of the public. We say Mr Larnach, advisedly as he appears to have framed un l askcil nearly all the questions.

There is very little doubt in our minds that, the institution suffered, and suffered severely through the parsimony of the Government, together with Government patron.-i.ge in filling tlie offices. The Rev. t)e Castro is a case in point. He appears to have had no qualifications for the post of chief clerk otlier than perhaps being the friend of someone in authority in high places, and again, the chief office in Christchurch was oft«a left iu charge of a youth at the

muiiilici'iit salary of ton shillings a week. Nevertheless, we still think that nil this was evident enough 'vitluHit fping in to tho enormous expenditure entailed by the Commission. We hope to recur to this question on a future occasion.