STRATFORD NEWS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XL, Issue 9207, 8 October 1891, Page 2

STRATFORD NEWS.

♦ ■ ■ , [FROM OUR RESIDENT AGENT.] October 7. — The long pending settlement of accounts between the Taranaki and Stratford Counties was arrived at to-day at th© office of tho former. The AuditorGeneral was present in the capacity of arbitrator, each county being represented \by its Chairman, one or two others members and clerk. The proceedings, viewed in the light of an arbitration, were a farce, the adjustment being made on a purely arithmetical basis, involving no higher judicial functiona than a sum in simple rule of three. As the rateable value of the severed portion is to the rateable value of the whole, so is the indebtedness of the severed portion, on aya v given date, to the indebtedness of the whole on that dato. As the Stratford clerk has been engaged for two days in analysing the Taranaki accounts for tho last fourteen years, with a view to an equitable adjustment on the lines of a balance-Bheet of the severed portion alone, our representatives fail to see any merit, save that of beautiful simplicity, in tho process adopted by the Auditor -General. However, as it appears that both parties to the settlement look upon themselves as tho victims of a cruel fraud, Mr Fitzgerald, no doubt, views the result as a conspicuous trinmph for " the Bystem." That result is that Stratford owes Taranaki £130 on general account, and a further £4 per annum for 20 years on account of the public debt. The Auditor-General's letter on the footpath question will yot turn out to be a brutumfulmen, a mode of escape from its effects having been suggested, which meets with the approval of the town solicitor. I am not of a more vindictive turn of mind than most victims of a crushing despotism, but I should like to pilot the AuditorGeneral and his accomplice across the Btreet from the railway station to the Bank of New Zealand to-night. By the bye, where are the life buoys that the Town Board undertook to provide ? •I suppose it was thought that, if the Board could float a loan, anybody could float alone, but surely when it was found that the Board could not alone not float a loan alone, but not even with the Council float a loan, and that it was the Council alone that could float a loan alone, then a loan — a lone— oh bother !