MUNICIPAL FINANCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19197, 13 June 1924, Page 6

MUNICIPAL FINANCE.

The question whether the local flotation of loans by the Corporation for municipal purposes is inimical to the prosecution of industrial enterprise is exercising some minds in the community. The suggestion ,is that the funds that are invested in municipal debentures might be applied more advantageously in the public interest if they were directly employed in the initiation or expansion of industrial undertakings or indirectly utilised, through investment on mortgage security, in the development of the resources of the country. It is a question on which, no doubt, there is something to be said on both sides. But the Corporation, as the representative of the ratepayers, justifiably seeks its money where it can obtain it readily and at a minimum of expense and inconvenience. For their part, investors are by no means reluctant to entrust the Corporation with their funds when they know, as most of them do, that the security that is offered is of unexceptionable character' and that the investment in municipal bonds involves no risk. The electors upon whom the responsibility is placed of administering the affairs of the city are not free from the human liability to err, and not infrequent are the charges of blundering, of neglect and of incompetencq that are brought against them,—sometimes ignorantly, sometimes perhaps maliciously, sometimes doubtless with at least some snow of reason. But in the very important department of municipal finance the Corporation occupies a position of unassailable strength. We publish this morning the substance of an address delivered yesterday by the City Treasurer in which he dissects and examines the municipal general and trading accounts in such si way as they might be expected to bo examined if they were the accounts of a public company. We do not know that there has been any explanation of municipal finance at once more concise and more lucid than that furnished by Mr Henderson in this address. It merits the careful perusal of tin ratepayers and of investors who may not bo ratepayers. It should completely, dissipate any doubts that may exist anywhere as to the soundness of the business that is done by the Corporation as the proprietor of large and growing trading concerns. It ,should sensibly increase the sense of pride which tin people of Dunedin entertain in being residents of no mean city. It should also. Wo may suggest, tend to indue in even the harshest critics of the City Council some measure of respect for th men who devote a large amount of tinn to the service of the community and t< the control, under the advice of capable officials, of very important businesses.