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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9013, 28 March 1888, Page 4

Public administration like Caesar's wife should be always above suspicion, and whensoever it is not so, it may in these days most surely expect to be taken to task and to be called on to render a reason. Whether Corporate bodies entrusted with the public estate should or should not make reductions in rents in accordance with the state of the times, is a moot question ; and we do not mean to discuss it now. It has been said that people who have speculated in Corporation or Harbour Board leases in prosperous times, if they had made a great success, would not have shared that gain with the public, and that, neither, being unsuccessful should they share the loss, but having made their bed, there they should lie. Again, it is urged that as all private propertyholders, not merely for sentiment and pity, but as good business, niake reductions to their tenants in order to enable them to weather the storm, the representatives of the people should not be harder than the people themselves, neither should they be precluded by their fiduciary position from dealing in a business-like spirit with the public estate ; a conclusion which we certainly endorse. The merits of these contending arguments, however, we shall for the present leave to others to determine, but in one thing we are very clear, that whatever course is taken, it should be uniform, and if it is not uniform, the reason should be rendered, lest peradventure it may be said that they are making lish of one and flesh of another, to the detriment of the public weal and the discredit of the public administration. It is known that the City Council have repeatedly and persistently refused to lower rents or make concessions to their tenants, who, carried away by the speculative mania of a few years ago, had involved themselves in the obligations of exorbitant rentals; but we find that at last meeting of the City Council the Legal Committee, who had had one application for a decrease of rent under their consideration, recommended that it should be allowed. Now, we are not objecting to such reduction ; far from it; but our contention is that it should be applied uniformly, and if relief is given to one there should be a general valuation, and similar relief should be given to all. And we are the more inclined to this by the fact that the relief proposed is of a very substantial kind, and such as entails a very large diminution of income to the city Treasury. The rent of the property in question appears to be £428 per annum, and on the recommendation of the Legal Committee the Council reduces it by £200 a-year for twenty years, with (

full rent for the remainder of the term. We need scarcely state that such a reduction, extending over twenty years, is not a usual thing even with the most indulgent landlords, who are generally disposed to remit a portion for a year or two, in the hopes that times will mend. But this sum of £200 a-year remission for twenty years amounts in the aggregate to £4000, and with compound interest added not only for these twenty years, but the remainder of the term, may be fairly estimated as equivalent to £10,000, which is a very large amount of public property to give away. It is true there is a concession, to wit, that the buildings shall become at the end of the term the property of the city ; but as these are to be insured for £2500, and may be assumed to be valued at that, it is fair to conclude that they will certainly not be worth more than this at the end of, say, thirty or forty years ; so that altogether the Council has apparently been very liberal indeed with the ratepayers' money. However, it is not to this we object, for the Council should not be harsh or extortionate in dealing with any man who has been tempted in a moment of excitement to bid an unreasonable rental; but what we claim is that the measure dealt to citizens should be uniform, and no occasion should be given to evil-minded persons to speak despitefully of the _ Council, and to say that they have yielded to importunity, or influence, or the claims of friendship what they are not disposed to grant to others. And what we should desire to know is, whether the Council will be prepared to make similarly generous and liberal arrangements with all others, or is this to be regarded as a special and exceptional favour, not to be repeated.