The Daily Telegraph THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1882.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3532, 2 November 1882, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1882.

The officers of the Corporation have accepted the terms offered them under the resolution of the special meeting of the Council. It was not thought that they would do otherwise. Increased work and decreased pay, with a combination of offices that cannot be properly combined, are the terms the Council offer to its old servants. The financial aftairs of the borough mi°ht have necessitated an all round reduction of salaries, but we can conceive no circumstances under which the public service should be required to suffer. And that it will suffer there cannot be the slightest doubt if the arrangements that come into force in January are not altered. In the first place to require the Town Clerk to be treasurer and receiver of rates is to demand of him duties that it ie simply impossible for any one man to perform. He might just as well be asked to be in two places at one time. It is simply impossible for him to be engaged in receiving rates, writing out receipts, filling up demands, issuing permits, keeping the account books, and interviewing all comers on the thousand and one subjects upon which information is daily required, and to do all this efficiently and with civility. Such incongruous work would break down the temper of an angel in a week, and in a fortnight drive him into a lunatic asylum. The Town Clerk, in his reply to the Council, has the honesty to say that, while ac3epting all these new duties, the combination of offices will in practice be found most difficult to carry out efficiently. No one knows better than the Town Clerk what the inevitable result will be—the public service and the public convenience must suffer. People will be turned from the Corporation offices because no attention can be paid to them; they -nay come with money to pay rates, or they may come to sign a contract, but with ten persons waiting before them, whose business will not brook delay, they must go away. The slightest acquaintance with the working of the Town Clerk's office must assure any one that, though the business of each day may be fitful, there are times when the whole energies of the Town Clerk, the Receiver of Rates, and of the Valuer are demanded. It is at those moments, when three or four ratepayers are requiring attention, when the public service would suffer if the services of the officers were not immediately available— and, of course, they could not be available if the work now performed by two or three had to be done by one man. The resolutions, or rather the amendments to the motions passed at the special meeting, hasty and ill-considered as they were, exhibit to a remarkable degree the extent to which it is possible to push a penny wise and pound foolish policy. The Receiver of Rates requires to be a competent accountant; he should be exact and methodical, and to have a cool head. Without these qualifications there is certain to be something wrong in his accounts. The present Receiver has his time fully occupied, and it is acknowledged on all sides that a more competent or painstaking officer could not. be desired or obtained. Yet this is the very officer who has beea selected as the one that can be best got rid of. It is to be very much desired that before the end of the year a majority of the Council will be got to work together to upset the resolutions of the special meeting, that promise so abundantly to create confusion and inefficiency in every branch of the Corporation offices.