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Lyttelton Times, Volume LIX, Issue 6869, 6 March 1883, Page 4

It ia carious to learn that the amounts granted under the Roads and Bridges Construction Aot can not be published without a breach of confidence. The Government has refused to give the figures, even to friendly journals, " for fear of disclosing the financial arrangemente of the local governing bodies," without the consent of those bodies. As the reason is given in a Ministerial paper in the words we have quoted, we must accept it as a faot that the answer actually was made. The plea is on© of the queerest. Money can be obtained by a local body under the Aot in one of the several ways specified by the Act's provisions. What these methods are it is unnecessary to specify. We need only mention that they all, with one exception, require the permission of the ratepayers to he publicly asked and granted. The exception is the case of a local body having sufficient funds to find one-fourth of the grant asked for from the Minister of Publio Works. Under all the methods/then, of getting money under the Aot on® only does aot require the utmost publication. With reference to that one, it is obvious that no local body can be embarrassed by publication of the amount of its grant, firstly because such would be the publication of a faot—the possession of a cash balance—financially advantageous, and (secondly) because the ratepayers have a right to all necessary Information about the accounts of their governing body. They are all public accounts in fact, not private accounts like those of banks and mercantile communities. What reason there can be for the fear of the Government to disclose financial arrangements which ought to be pablio, we cannot

desirahla to aUovr intending contraetora to know the exact amounts at disposal. But that is a bad oompliment to tha membera of the governing body, implying that they barn no oottMttw will of their own. Tbera it, moreover, tan fullest publication of the sams voted for railway construction and public works generally | and yat ooatraotefs somehow eoatrivt to bo dealt with within the limits of reason. Wo should like to sea some explanation from the Government, for In of any explanation, the throwing of a veil of secrecy over public accounts ia necessarily suspitious in the extreme It suggests a fear lent the principle of the division of [grants may bo enquired into too closely.