HARBOUR BOARD ACCOUNTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 7899, 18 March 1887, Page 5

HARBOUR BOARD ACCOUNTS.

(by telegraph—press ASSOCIATION.] CHRiSTCHrjHCH.Thursday. Mb. Beetham delivered judgment to-day in the case of .Comptroller-General v. Lyttelton Barbour Board and C. H. Williams, as follows ;—I think there can be no question as to the fact that the Harbour Board, and the secretary acting under its instructions, have refused to allow the Harbour Board accounts to be audited by the accountant appointed by the Audit Office. Several points have been raised for the defence, one as to the operation of general olause 222 of the Harbour Act, 1878. In my opinion the penal clause 222 will not anply to offences under sections 31 and 32 of the Public Revenue Act 1878, incorporating section 14, if it can be called incorporating. The section is incomplete. It simply provides that sections 31 and 32, of the Public Revenues Act 1878, shall be deemed to apply to and include accounts of Harbour Boards, and the Audit Office shall have the same power in relation to such accounts as it has in respect of accounts relating to the receipt, custody, and expenditure of public moneys under the said Act. It does not incorporate those sections, but accounts of Harbour Boards are, so to speak, relegated to the operation of the Public Revenues Act IS7B ; and those persons having to do with matters dealt with by those sections must, I think, be under the penal clause 82 of that Act, if under any. The information will be dismissed. Mr. Nalder applied on behalf of the Harbour Board for costs, whioh were allowed.