THE PUBLIC ACCOUNTS. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9904, 24 November 1893, Page 4

THE PUBLIC ACCOUNTS. TO THE EDITOR.

'IT 1? J mT su PPlement yesterday I ob« serve that Mr Tom Mackenzie (of the Clufcha> at the close of his excellent and very practical address said that ho advocated " above all a truthful statement of the accounts of the colony and financial dealings of the Ministry of the day beiDg placed before the people of the colony freely, truthfully, and unreservedly." Mr Brush, the new candidate standing in opposition to Mr Mackenzie, also took a statesmanlike grasp of all questions, and said a very much needed reform is "a simplification of the public accounts. He was not prepared to suggest a plan, but he really didnot see why the public accounts should not be as easy of comprehension to the ordinary mind as the statements periodically published by private companies and ordinary banking institutions. Such a method is the only just one! Now, what can anyone," no matter what his capacity, make out of the terrible contradiction in figures from the Premier down to every other M.H.R. from Auckland to the Bluff. These things are a scandal and had no right to exist. , There is no doubt that in the right to manipulate the figures of the public accounts lies the chief power of " party government." Were the members of the Government simply "administrators" there would be no reason for such a system of treachery.—l am, &c ,

A Puzzled Doubtee. Dunedin, November 23.