COST OF LOAN POLL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18348, 14 March 1923, Page 9

COST OF LOAN POLL.

AUDITOR.GENERAL'S VIEW.

CHRISTCHURCH PROTEST.

[by telegraph.,— press association.] CHRISTCHURCH. Tuesday Members of the City Council recorded their indignation, at the action of the Auditor-General in disallowing an Mem of £300, the cost of conducting . a poll of ratepayers on a Spreydon loan proposal which, according to past practice, had been made a charge on the Joan itself. Mr. J. A. Flesher said the council should take up a strong stand and see that the law was altered. It always had been recognised that the expense of taking a loan poll should come Out of the loan. The position of local bodies would be intolerable if the ruling of the present Auditor-General- was allowed, and a great many people would hesitate before taking positions on local bodies. The matter was really only a technicality, but one would imagine that the . council had been doing something wrong, whereas they had only been following ordinary practice. He moved that the attention of the Government be drawn to the fact that the Crown law office holds the opinion that the cost of raising a loan does not cover the expense of obtaining the authority of the ratepayers for the loan. "You have to go to the ratepayers to get the loan," said Mr. Flesher, "and yet the Auditor-General says you cannot get those expenses from the loan, although that has been the practice for the last quarter of a century, and this is the first time the question has been raised. It is time the new ■ AuditorGeneral was instructed on the matter, and that, if necessary, the law should be altered to allow of those expenses being paid out of the loan." Mr. Flesher's motion was carried unanimously.