THE TREASURY CRITICISED

Press, Volume C, Issue 29637, 6 October 1961, Page 15

THE TREASURY CRITICISED

Powers Termed “Autocratic” It was time a Government came into power which was prepared to strip the Treasury of the powers it had assumed, said Mr S. S. Green, Mayor of Dargaville, speaking at a public meeting arranged by the Constitutional Society last evening. , In Wellington public servants had dubbed the Treasury “the Kremlin” because of its autocratic powers and because at its empire building, he said. Mr Green claimed that Treasury control had resulted in w.told waste. The department should only be concerned with allocating funds for expenditure, not for supervising how those moneys were spent. The increasing amount of Government control of local bodies was described by Mr Green as contributing to the frustrations and delays experienced by local bodies in their buildings and works programmes.

He said that under every Government the number of public servants increased. It was time that a Government was prepared to make a firm effort to at least stay this continual growth in the army of bureaucrats. Bingo v. Badminton Badminton players have been barred from an Exeter, Devon, church hall because they interfered with bingo, the "Daily Mail" reports. The bingo players claimed they could not concentrate with the noise made by the badminton club—the call of "clickety-dick” could not be heard at times because of the “humpety-thump.” The badminton club was therefore asked to give up one of the two nights on which it had used the hall for the last 12 years. The reason? Simple economics, explained a ehurch warden. Bingo brought in £lO a night, badminton 30s a week.—’London, October 5.