STORY OF A LOAN

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 893, 12 August 1910, Page 5

STORY OF A LOAN

CIVIL SERVANTS RUINING THE : GOVERNMENT. • "This' Government is suffering very much at the hands':of. the civil, servants, remarked Mr.,Koss in the House of. Representatives last night. -He went on to explain' that in 1908 the Government put JB2OO on, tho Estimates lon account of £1000 as a £ for subsidy towards tho ,re-erection of what is known as Harding's Road Bridge.. ■ The work, !he said, was estimated to cost .£3OOO, aim.as the.whole of tho subsidy, would not be availablo to the Woodvillo County Council 1 until after the session of 1909, when tho balance of .£BOO was voted, the'local body borrowed' .£3OOO from the Government. As the contract: was. completed before 1909, the contractor was. p<tid out uf the loan moneys. Immediately on the council receiving the whole of the subsidy of ,£IOOO, they took advantage of Section,ol of the Loans to :local Bodies Act, 'which provides that a local : body may return to the Government any sum of money borrowed which was found to be in excess of the amount actually required for any particular work. A receipt was obtained by tho local body from the Treasury Department for the <£1000, and that amount was duly taken credit for by the local body. When it submitted its balance-sheet to the Audit Department, the document was stuck up, on the ground that the ,£IOOO which had been returned to the Government as part of the original loan was in reality the .£IOOO subsidy.. "This and other matters," commented Mr. lioss, "is bringing the Government into disrepute. It should sit on the civil servants who aro running. this'country. If it did not do so it would find as time went on that ultimately it would be put out *of office through the actions of tho civil servants, who'are-administering Liberal measures in 4 most arbitrary' manner."