New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1885.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 705, 4 September 1885, Page 12

New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1885.

Another very useful aet of pruning was performed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday. One more of the measuresbroughtdown this session has been rendered innocuous by the excision of its objectionable features. The Counties Act Amendment Bill contained two provisions of a most undesirable character. It was proposed to enact that the Chairman of each County Council instead of being chosen by the body over which he would have to preside, should be elected by the ratepayers and should become an extra Councillor, any outsider eligible for election as a Councillor to be eligible for this post, and the selection of any Councillor as Chairman to have the effect of vacating his previously-held seat in. the Council. No good reason was shown for the adoption of this change, which would be entirely a step in the wrong direction. The idea seems to be that the more elective offices we can create, and the more elections we can cause to be held, the more liberty and liberal institutions we are granting to the public. The frequency of elections for one thing and another is becoming a perfect nuisance to the unfortunate electors, whose lives are made a burden to them by the pertinacious canvassing to which they are forever being subjected, and even from this viewpoint it is not desirable to add needlessly another to the long list of these oft-recurring torments. Apart from that consideration, which we freely admit ought not to weigh against the public good, were the latter likely to be promoted by elections for County Chairmanships, there is a distinct anomaly in going outside a Council for its chairman. It is manifestly preferable, as it is also more usual, for such body to choose one of its own number to preside over its deliberations and to regulate the conduct of its business, just as the House of Representatives chooses its own Speaker and Chairman of Committees. A proposal for the Speaker and Chairman of Committees to be publicly elected by the voters of the whole Colony would strike anybody at once as self-evidently absurd. Yet it would really be quite on all fours with this proposed plan of thus electing the County Chairmen. Such was manifestly the feeling of the House, and the clause providing the innovation was struck out by the very large majority of 52 votes against 24<. Even more objectionable was the provision for the election of auditors. Of all public officers an auditor is the one who should be the most thoroughly independent of all electioneering considerations. His functions are in no respect political. He has not to consider whether any given proceeding is or was desirable or not, or whether the public interests can be better served in one way thau another. Not at all. What an auditor has to do is to ascertain that the accounts are properly and accurately kept, and that the public money is only expended in the manner and upon the purposes sanctioned by the law. Where is the sense of electing a man to determine this ? It would be just as rational to elect judges and magistrates. All we want is a clear-headed, capable accountant, uninfluenced by any considerations save the one of resolute determination to see that the accounts submitted to audit were as they should be, and that all the recorded transactions had been strictly in accordance with the law. An independent expert is what we need, whereas an elected auditor may be any popular incapable who cannot write his own name or add two and two together accurately. There is no question of electing auditors of the public accounts of the Colony. The Auditor-Generalship is a patent office not amenable to any interference. Tho analogous position of the auditor of local bodies* accounts ought to be similarly independent of local influences. The elective character of municipal auditorships is a, grave blot on our municipal

law, and a change is urgently needed. It is altogether a retrograde seep to extend this utterly wrong principle to other local bodies. Ear better would it be to amend the Municipal Corporations Act by abolishing elective auditorships and substituting audit by an officer permanently apppointed by the Governor. The mere fact that the "Wellington burgesses have hitherto exercised their elective powers judiciously in this respect and have always chosen competent accountants, however creditable to their good sense, is no argument in favour of the plan, which is essentially a wrong one. Indeed, we would go further, and not only abolish elective auditors, but also make the permanent official auditors controllers as well, as in the case of the Colonial exchequer. This is found to work very satisfactorily in Great Britain, where all local bodies’ accounts are subject to the most stringent audit, the auditors having the power of surcharging the members of such bodies with every item of illegal or irregular expenditure, and of compelling them to pay it out of their own pockets. No matter how popular or pardonable such irregular expenditure may have been, the auditors can only deal with it according to law. They are in the position of judges, and can exercise solely judicial functions, irrespective of considerations of policy or popularity. The House very properly refused to make such an office elective in the case of County Councils, and threw out the clause, as well as that providing for the outside election of County Chairmen. These excisions have immensely improved the Bill, which so long as it included those provisions would have formed a very undesirable addition to the Statute Book.