FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 1912. MUNICIPAL FINANCE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1389, 15 March 1912, Page 4

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 1912. MUNICIPAL FINANCE.

In another column we print the substance of a report on municipal finance,, recently presented to the City Council of Manchester, which deserves the attention of our own City Council and the public. The report was the outcome of an instruction to the Finance Committee of the Manchester Corporation to investigate the matter of "securing a continuous supervision and control" of the expenditure in the various departments of the Corporation. No doubt most- AVcllington people will be surprised at the careful and elaborate system under which the public expenditure in Manchester is estimated and authorised; and they will be still more surprised to learn that this system is regarded by the careful people of Manchester as being capable of large improvements. In Wellington, and in practically all the boroughs of New Zealand, municipal finance is treated rather perfunctorily by those responsible for municipal affairs. There is a far closer scrutiny of national expenditure in this country now than (here used to be four or five years ago, but even now there is a vast deal to be clone in this respect. Even so. the amount of public supervision exercised over national expenditure here infinitely exceeds the public supervision over municipal expenditure. Finance, which ought to be the prime concern of our city authorities, is really less thought, about, either by the authorities or by the public, Ihan surh comparatively minor mnlters as the motor bj,-law or the holding of

boxing contests in the Town Hall. Wc should consider the city very fortunate if wo had even something like that careful control of expenditure on capital account which obtains in Manchester; but there will have to he a civic awakening before wc can got even that, or oven get Councillors who will feel keen about municipal finance. Finance is a humdrum thins: figures are dull to the ordinary man, as dull as what they represent is important to him. Wc are accustomed here to allow the city's finances to drift along without much discussion, and, as a result, there is little incentive to Councillors to make the best of the city's resources. Our city is growing year by year, and its financial concerns have become largo enough to demand just as anxious attention as the general finances of the nation. In Britain the larger cities, and, following their lead, the smaller towns, treat municipal politics and municipal finance very seriously. The city would profit from the adoption by its governors of the attitude of the Manchester Finance Committee. The tendency in our national politics towards public paternalism and profuse expenditure is one that is not absent from our local politics, and although we believe it is very unlikely that spendthrift majorities will appear in the Councils of our cities for some time to come, the best preparation against such a possible danger is the cultivation of a serious concern for careful finance by those responsible for the cities' government. It was a rule of Gladstone's always to consider first the financial meaning of every act of policy or administration ; and it is the only safe rule for any administrator of public affairs to follow. Hitherto our City Councils have generally taken something like a slap-dash and easy-going view of the pounds, shillings, and pence in the business of administration, but we trust a time will come when the consideration of the estimates of city expenditure will be regarded as the largest business of the Council every year.