RATES AND REVENUE

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 34, 10 February 1927, Page 10

RATES AND REVENUE

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —I shall be glad to be afforded an opportunity to remove a misapprehension ■which appears to have ai-isen iiv the public mind in connection with a deputation from Brooklyn, Vogeltown, and jUornington, which waited on the City Council on Thursday, 3rd instant. In addressing the council I stated that in the last five years a sum of £40,200 had been derived from the district in rates alone, while an amount of only £12,920 had been spent within it. The difference between these amounts is £27,280. The figures were furnished by the Town Clerk, and were not disputed in any way. In reply, the Mayor, according to the report which appeared in your columns on Friday last, stated, inter alia: "As a matter of fact the rates collected from the district amounted to 2.4 per cent, of the total received from the city, and the amount expended in the district was 2.3G of the total, so that the district had not fared so badly." The difference between these iizui-es is .04 per cent., and it is to be noted that no period of time was mentioned. It is obvious that if a sum of £40,200 represents a percentage of 2.4 of a certain amount, the difference of £27,280 shown above as being unaccounted for must represent more than the .04 per cent, which his Worship, from the figures supplied by his officers, states that it does represent. Some further and more satisfactory explanation most certainly appears to be called for. It is possible, of course, that the percentages given refer to totals of revenue and expenditure on public works respectively. To show what can be done in this regard with figures which are insufficiently explained, let me take a simple example. Let us suppose that the revenue of a town is £10.000, and that the expenditure on public works is. £0000. If a given district furnishes 3 per cent, of the total revenue, it is called upon to pay £300 per annum. If it receives in return 4 per cent, of the total expenditure on public works, only £240 per annum will be spent on it, and the Borough Council will be £60 to the good. Yet if these figures were quoted in the same way as those given by his Worsliip, people might easily believe that they had received 1 per cent, more of the total revenue than they had contributed. Such, of course, would not be the case.— I am, etc.,

F. D. O'HALLORAN, Hon. Secretary, Vogelto\vn-Mornin£ton M.E. Association,