A PECULIAR CLAIM

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1511, 14 February 1901, Page 23

A PECULIAR CLAIM

A bombshell has fallen amongst the members of the Wairarapa South County Council m the shape of a letter from Mr Hugh Pollen, JJnder-Secretary Colonial Secretary's Office, {intimating that it has been decided to deduct £254 3s 8d from any subsidy or other moneys payable by the Government to the Council, in accordance with section 19 of the Appropriation Act, 1900, for services rendered in carrying out the Licensing Committee elections held in 1897 and 1900 in the Wairarapa Licensing District. The accounts are for services rendered chiefly by the returning officer and his sons, and include a demand from Messrs Skerrett and Wylie for £74 12s Bd. It will be remembered that the returning officer’s claim was the subject of a great deal of litigation, in which the Courts ruled in favour of the defendant. The Carterton “Observer,” in a strongly worded article on the subject, says that “What the Government did was to get a clause introduced into the Appropriation Act, the intention of which was to enable them to make the county pay these claims in spite of Courts of Law and in defiance of Court judgments.” Clause 19 of the Appropriation. Act reads as follows : -—“ln any case where the Colonial Treasurer is satisfied that any local authority liable to make any payment in respect of the costs and expanses incident to the election and meetings of the licensing committee as provided in section 16 of the Alcoholic Liquors Sale Control Act, 1895, has made default by so doing, he may pay the same, and may cause the amount so paid to be recovered from the defaulting local authority as a debt due to the Crown, cr to be deducted from any subsidy or other moneys at any time payable by the Government to such local authority-” u

When the Council was discussing the matter Mr Wolters, the county clerk, said that it had been decided by the highest Court in ' the land that the returning officer had incurred these expenses in connection with the licensing election by his own misconduct as returning officer, and that he had no claim whatever upon the funds of the Council.

The Council passed, a resolution as follows : —“That the Government be informed that the Council is not liable even, under the clause which has been slipped at- the last hour of the last Parliament into the Appropriation Act for the payment of the money referred to, and that the Supreme Court has so decided.”