COUNTY RIDING ACCOUNTS

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LXII, Issue 14, 21 February 1941, Page 1

COUNTY RIDING ACCOUNTS

Sir,—l have followed with much interest your report of the discussion at the February meeting of the Ellesmere County Council on Cr. W. O. Rennie's proposal to abolish riding accounts, and your subsequent leading article thereon. Permit me to congratulate Cr. Rennie and you upon the stand each has taken, though at present very much iin a minority. Clear-sighted moral courage has been displayed in this matter.

It has been my lot to be associated with county councils under both riddng accounts and the single general account systems, and I have no hesitation in pronouncing in favour of the abolition of riding accounts. As is ably painted out in your leader, when a major and desirable prospective work is under review, human nature being what it is, it is almost a certainty that ridings not adjacent to the site of the proposed work will, through their representatives, vote against lit, and thus delay progress. Then the time comes when the objecting ridings themselves want a large work undertaken, and the erstwhile defeated riding then turn against them in a "tit for tat" spirit, and the whole thing boils down to a small and-stupid parochialism run mad. It is a small system, and it makes, men small too. As you say, it belongs to the horse-drawn vehicles stage, and should everywhere have been abolished with the advent of motor traffic. In this day of full mechanical transport, riding accounts are an anachronism, and the speedier they are abolished the less their existence wall cast discredit on those who still, blind to the march of progress, uphold j them.—l am etc., j ORLANDO.