A BOROUGH COUNCIL'S DISAPPOINTMENT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7331, 18 February 1902, Page 2

A BOROUGH COUNCIL'S DISAPPOINTMENT.

THE NEW BRIGHTON LOAN ONCE MOKE. It is now more than a year ago since tie New Brighton Borough Council instituted; proceedings for the purpose of obtaining a loan of £3000 for the construction of channelling and streets in the borough, and if perseverance meant success the Council. vwqulcL by now have had the pleasure of handling an instalment of the money. But its methods of procedure o& two or three previous occasions hare not been in order, and the Treasury was compelled to asfc for rectificatione. These matters the Council promptly attended to, and at the- ban- : •. quet in connection with the opening of th» new Council Chambers on Wednesday eve-, ning the Mayor stated that he .had just '.-. received a telegram from the Treasury, Department stating that the documents had. _ been handed to the (frown Ibaw officers, and he hoped at the Council's next meeting to. be able to state that the loan had been granted.. At last night's meeting of the Council,, however, these hopes were dispelled when the Town Clerk read a communication fronv ■ the Treasury Department to this effect :-r- - That the Treasury, in reply to the Council's v communication of Feb. 5 relative to. the :/ loan of £3000 for ,the carrying out of neoes- x sary works in the borough, regretted td inform the Council that it had been discovered that- the special order adopting the Local Bodies' Loans Act, 1886, was confirmed on th» twenty-eighth day after it. had beta adopted, which rendered the, said special order invalid, ajad would necessitate, the Council— which was referred" to Section ' 121, Sub-section 2, of the Municipal "Corporations Act, 1886, on the matter— taking all steps afresh to obt&in the loan, TheTreasury referred the Council; to a similar case in the Court of Appeal—Wellington City Council v. Stains, page 329, New Zea- . land Law Reports, Volume X.— in which the presiding Judge expressed his opinion that the words "not sooner tiian" could have no other meaning than "at an interval of not less than," md when these words are read with Sub-*botjoii: 2 of- Section 121 of the Municipal Corporations Aety 1886, it followed that special orders could not be confirmed until the twenty-ninth day after they were adopted. _ The Town Clerk reported that he had telegraphed) to the Treasury a* follows, but had not yet received! a reply :~" The area covered by proposed loan same as existingloan area, therefore the adoption- of the Local Bodies' Loans Act is and has been in force for special area. Is it compulsory to go over the same ground again?' The Mayor (Mr G! M'lntyre) said that the letter placed the Counoil in a very unsatisfactory position in regard to its loan. They Md complied with every previous vagary and whim of the Treasury or the subject, complaints in relation to the presumed invalidity of devoting paper and the special order as well as the non-explanation of what the term "contingencies" comprised having been satisfactorily settled, ana now apparently the Treasury tad found a fresh loophole for shuffling. He would like, to point. out that on the occasion 0f a previous loan .of £4000 \no such difficulties were experienced, but evidently sincerthdse days the Government's finances had Teceded. Had they expected an instalment from the Government of £300 on the loan, instead 6f the anticipated first year's grant of £2000, probably they would have found the smaller amount more within the capabilities of the Treasury. 'From recent political utterances it was evident that the pursestrings of the would be', closed tight until March 31, the end of the Government's financial year. Mr M'lntyre then instituted comparisons between the granting of the previous loan and the methods of procedure in the present case, which, went to. show, he said, the hardship of the) Council's position. • After a long discussion, ia which various} clauses of the Acts directly bearing on the point at issue were minutely considered, Councillor Walker said the Treasury waa apparently playing a game of bluff with the manifest intention of throwing cold water on the loan. After Councillor Foster had stated that if the Council's method of procedure was wrong' in the eyes of the Treasury, the only thing left, for them to do was to" correct their error, it was decided, on the motion of Councillor Delamare that the Town Clerk should again communicate with the Department recapitulating the circumstances and await its dictum. . ■