HOLES IN THE MUNICIPAL POCKET

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 17, 22 July 1921, Page 6

HOLES IN THE MUNICIPAL POCKET

In the matter of City Council outgoings, Councillor Chapman is clearly right in insisting that overexpenditures should not be stressed more than under-expenditures ; and Councillors M'Kenzie and Norwood with equal justice point out that the cost of a machine—properly chargeable to capital, and intended for money-saving use not only in the winter but also in the summer and in the years to come —is not on a par with items of recurring expenditure represented by no permanent asset. Insofar as criticism of over T expenditure stresses the weak features and ignores the better ones, it misses its mark ; and the strongest financial critic is he who balances the whole and presents a judgment that cannot be attacked. But if Councillor Forsyth does not offer a perfectly balanced criticism, he performs some service in mentioning those items in which overexpenditure has occurred, and in leaving it to others to defend. Seasonal expenditures are sometimes on the level of time-average, sometimes not; to put it in another way, the expenditure of half the annual vote in three months is not always extravagance, and jjiay even be, in its result, money-saving. Councillor W. H. Bennett, one of the most level-headed of eourfcillors, does not demand that the Council's expenditure should be square onthr.ee months, nor yet on six months, but that it should be square on the year. Such an achievement may or may not be a virtue, but if bank pressure makes it a necessity, then the best course is surely to regard necessity as a virtue, and to impress the spending departments with that philosophy. If .the price of economy is eternal vigilance, Councillor Forsyth has his justification. iS