CORRESPONDENCE.

Ashburton Herald, Volume I, Issue 221, 11 December 1878, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

We rlo not hold ourselves responsible for the ' opinions expressed, by our correspondents.-

f; To the Editor of the Evening Echo. Sib, —On my return from the Kaikoura to-day, my attention was directed to a letter of Mr. E. G. Wright, with reference to the banking account of the Ashburton County Council. Those who have known Mr. Wright and do not know all the circumstances of his rather bad case, will be surprised., that a gentleman of such remarkable promptitude and energy of character should have taken so many weeks to prepare an answer to a- few plain words, uttered by me about the middle of last month. A position so unusual for him is easily explained by one who knows the facts.

It may have been a day or two before I spoke at Waterton, certainly not more, that I called at the County Council Office in Ashburton, saw the bank book, and got all the particulars from the clerk, to enable me to make the statement I did, which was perfectly correct, as there ■was then only £IO,OOO deposited for 12 months. My statement was not quite so strong as s it. should have been, as I did not call attention to the .important fact that besides losing the £2 ss. weekly, the Council-had the disadvantage, of. having a portion of its money locked up, whereas If it had accepted the N.Z. Bank’s tender, besides not losing the £2 55., it would have had all its money at command, and free to use it as it pleased. But so far as my-statement went it was perfectly correct according to the bank and other council books at that date. Any change required time and hence the extraordinary delay in a -swering my letter. What Mr.. Wright now .shows is—that bv locking up £40,000 out of £48,000 of the Council’s funds the Council has Since arranged to get £llO a year more interest than it would do by having all its funds at command in the New Zealaud Bank. He might have-gone fai'ther, and shown your readers that if the Council had chosen to give up all the duties the public expects it to perform during the next year and lend the whole of their money out to interest at ten per cent, they could have got £920 a year more interest. But would that prove anything except that the Council understood money grubbing better than doing their public work. If the business and object of tbe Council is to hold money at interest for long fixed periods they could have done much better than putting it in the Union Bank at G| per cent, interest ; but if they are to use it as opportunity offers they should have taken 6 per cent, for money at command in. preference to sk, especially when coupled with the advantage of overdrawing at 6 instead of 7 per cent. Mr. Wright has not mentioned one item which is affected by his arrangement. He has forgotten to inform your readers of how mucin the-borough of Ashburton is likely to lose: oh its £SOOO for water works by being compelled to bank it with the Union instead, of the New Zealand.

Mr. Wright is quite mistaken, in saying that I agreed with the Finance Committee, i.e. with Mr.: Walker and himself, as to “the probable disposition of the county funds.during-theterm tendered for.” If I had done so, on what ground could I have opposed it as strongly as I did, both on the Coirimittee and in the Council ?

I certainly laughed heartily at Mr. Wright’s supposititious figures, as a fine specimen of special pleading. Mr.- Wright’s closing regret about my “ favorite Bank” will remind your readers of Robert Burns’ wish :

“ Oh wad some poo’er thh giftie gie us ' To see oursels as fliers see us.”

Or perhaps of the English proverb about glass houses. I don’t feel myself in a glass house on this subject, and no “ favorite Bank” will recognise me* as its ehampion. The only Bank I ever did business with in a long commercial career is the Union Bank, and the' only Bank I have ever publicly censured for its interference with New Zealand politics is the Bank of New Zealand ; but if the Bank of China had been doing business in Ashburton, was as safe, ano! had offered us as good terms as the Bank of New Zealand did, I should have voted for their acceptance in preference to the manifestly worse terms offered by the Union.—Yours, &c., • . Alfred Saunders. , A-,,pnside t .Dec. -10.