LOCAL BODY FINANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 83, 9 April 1929, Page 8

LOCAL BODY FINANCE.

HUGE DIMENSIONS.

PROBLEM FOR DEEP STUDY,

PROFESSOR belshaws lectures.

s Some timely remarks on the amazing 8 ?'"o«*th of expenditure by local bodies < m New Zealand were made bv Professor i H. Bel-haw Lift night at the first of a ' series of lectures on municipal govern- [( inent that lie is to give this autumn. 1 He is professor of economic* at the . University, and is an acknowledged * autlioi itv on matters affecting municipal affairs. He intends to divide the lec- ( tuies into two courses. one dealing with the pi oblems and methods of municipal government, and tue other with local body finance. The meeting was presided over by Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie, and among those present were the Mayor (Mr. G. Baildon) and a number of members of the City Council, and other local bodies. Professor Belshaw said problems of expenditure were equally important with those of revenue, a fact not ahvavs considered. Before the war there was a tendency to concentrate on the problem of revenue, but in recent years the attention of the public and financiers had been directed to problems attaching to expenditure. A« public spending incieased so the effect*; of wasted expenditure became more apparent through )cing magnified. It was obvious that there was now a greater need than ever ot the effective control of finance. VVhen emphasising the growing importance of local body finance in" New lttfa i OtMSOr Belshaw said that in i»l» state expenditure, including that r ?' S s ' u ' as £15,000,000, and in 1920 £23,.,00.000. l„ that period local bodv £21000000 e 1f 066 fr ° m £7 ' oo0 ' 000 ' .' • wae dow almost as great as national expenditure and was increasvfv tL ?° re ■ ra P M, y- J » the same way taxation increased bv 40 per cent '? 17 «* '•*. •hweS ,ft« eased by over 100 per cent. State , was £151,000,000 in 1918 indebfT' 000 ' 000 in 1926 " Lo«l body fs9?wTooo S - "T, fr ° m £27 ' 5 °°.000 to fc>J,ooo,ooo in that period, the percent»S» betas -