IMPROPER PAYMENT OF PUBLIC MONEY.

Evening Post, Volume XXI, Issue 56, 9 March 1881, Page 2

IMPROPER PAYMENT OF PUBLIC MONEY.

? The action of the Public Works Committee of the City Council, in voting £3 to the cabman Carter, who was fined by Mr. Shaw, E.M., the other day for driving into another cab, is wholly indefensible. We willingly give the members credit for being actuated by pure benevolence, but they have no right to exercise that benevolence at the expense of the ratepayers or in defiance of the law. The position of the affair is simply thus: — Carter was prosecuted for a breach of the city by-laws, the prosecution being instituted by Mr. A. G. Johnson, in his capacity of Inspector of Hackney Carriages, and on the advice of the City Solicitor. The case came before Mr. Shaw, E.M., who considered the charge against Carter fully proved, and fined him 20s, with Us costs, adding some severe remarks on the impropriety of his conduct. And now the Public Works Committee constitute themselves a Court of Appeal, reverse Mr. Shaw's judgment, and actually vote the convicted offender not merely the fine and costs, but also a further Bum, as solace, we suppose, to his wounded feelings. All this, be it observed, is out of the ratepayers' money, and without giving them any opportunity of expressing approval or disapproval of this generosity at their expense. We have not tile slightest objection to the City Councillors paying the defendant Carter's fine and costs for him if they chose to do so, or to their making him a present of £1 9s in addition, but let them do it out of their own purses, and not pick the ratepayers' pockets in order to bestow the plunder in charity. The sum may be small, but the principle involved is a very serious one. If the Public Works Committee may take it upon themselves to reverse the decision of one Court, and compensate the person against whom that was given,

there is no reason why they should not do the same in another case. They might just as well vote £1000 to pay the damages recently given against a Sydney paper for libel, on the jjround of maintaining the liberty of the Press. There would be nothing more illegal in the one than the other. It is altogether preposterous to have the City Council going out of its proper scope, and pretending to review or reverse judicial decisions, still more so, for it to pay away public money to any person merely on the ground that such decision has been given against him. The whole case was before the Resident Magistrate, and after hearing all the sworn evidence, he deliberately decided against Carter. That decision may have been right or wrong, but it is certainly not for the City Council to pronounce upon it or publicly set at nought the judgment of a court of law. The whole proceed- i ing is a monstrous one, and utterly illegal. The Council have no more right to vote £3 to Carter than they have to vote themselves £30 each for their trouble in going into the mattor, or to vote any of their friends £300 or £3000 as a Christmas Box. It is a gross and wilful misappropriation of public money, and the City Auditors will scandalously neglect their duty if they allow it to pass. The City Solicitor has declared the vote to be totally illegal, and, therefore, the payment cannot be supported in audit on the ground that it was voted. If the Councillors think Carter's case a hard one and wish to compensate him, let them do so by all means, but out of their own pockets— the only way in which they can lawfully do it, unless they choose to head a subscription list on his behalf, to which there can be no possible objection. We simply protest, and that most strongly, against so dangerous a principle— and one capable of such indefinite extension — as this illegal voting away of the Municipal funds, being allowed to pass.