Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE. SATURDAY SEPT. 5, 1903 THE HARBOR BOARD BILL.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9840, 5 September 1903, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE. SATURDAY SEPT. 5, 1903 THE HARBOR BOARD BILL.

An extraordinary statement made at the meeting of the Ratepayers' Association tli© other evening calls for a, word of comment, for if permitted to go unclmllenged it may be added to the fabric uf misconception that has been built up in connection with the Borough water and drainage loan proposals, and may prejudice a few unthinking ratepayers against the scheme. Referring to ckust: 2 of the proposed Gisborne Harbor Board Bill, which authorises the Public Trustee, out of the funds of the Board in his hands to lend to the Borough Council, if so requested by the Council, the sum of £22,000 at 4 per cent, per annum, upon certain specified security, including a special rate of 2s 6d in the £, it was Asserted by a legal authority, and endorsed by a leading light, of the Ratepayers' Association, tliat this was an attempt to legalise an illegal position ; that although the present poll might not be carried the Council could still get the money from the Harbor Board ; iind further, that without the voice of ratepayers the £20,000 could be obtained and the rates increased. "It was," said the gentleman making the statement, "a disgraceful position." Now, we do not know whether this deliverance was intended to be taken by the public as a considered legal opinion, or whether it was a mere utterance of the moment offered for home consumption, with a grain of salt, by the Ratepayers' Association, but in justice to the local authorities responsible for th<e submission of the proposition referred to to Parliament, we deem it our duty to emphatically challenge the statement. Emphasis was laid on the suggestion that the Bill said the Board "shall" lend the £20,000. We have a copy of the Bill, as advertised, before us, and in the clause referred to we fail to find the word "shall." But that is a mere detail. What the Bill does is to authorise the Trustee or the Board' to lend the money to the Council when requested, but we find nothing in the measure authorising the Borough Council to borrow. It must be known to the gentleman- who ventured this weighty legal opinion that Municipal Councils, as indeed all local bodies, are hedged round with various conditions, with regard to their borrowing powers, and that if he, as a Borough Councillor, was a party to obtaining a municipal loan without seeing that certain- stipulated formalities were dulv c » m P»*d with, lie would, under section 145 of the Municipal Corporations Act, be subject to pains and penalties. We quote the words of the statute : "If the Council at any time borrows any money or issues any debentures on the credit of the corporation in excess of or otherwise than in- accordance with the provisions of t-lus Act in that behalf, every Councillor shall be liable for every such offence to. a penalty of £100." It will probably be. said that the provision in the Harbor Board Bill is intended to supersede the provisions of the "Municipal Corporations Act, but in the absence of any direct authorisation of the Borough Council to borrow except through the ordinary statutory measures, or any provision for the repeal of the sections of the Municipal Act so far as the Gisborne Borough Council is concerned, we must take it that the regular course could not possibly be departed from. ' The misconception has apparently arisen over the terms" lending- and "borrowing." The Act, as we have said, only, authorises the Harbor Board to lend; it' says nothing about the Borough Council borrowing'; The Ratepayers' Association, if it was a financial institution, might- be authorised by its members to lend £1000 to the Borough Council, but the Council would still not be in a position to borrow, even though it had asked for a loan and made all arrangements with regard to its terms, until it had first completed formalities upon which depend the collection of the special rate that is to form part security " for the loan. The position must obviously be so clear to any person of unbiassed judgment that we will not insult the intelligence of our readers by further expounding the point, and wlulst we make no pretence at having delivered a legal opinion for which the customary six and eightpence might be charged, we venture to assert that if the Ratepayers' Association would apply the twenty -five guineas that they propose to devote to Mr Leslie Reynolds to the obtainment of a studied opinion . from the highest authority on municipal law, it would be -shown them' that the common-sense view is the right one, .and that there was no need for their absurd protest to the Harbor Board and Government against, "the objectionable clause."