PROTEST AGAINST CHARGE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 173, 23 July 1929, Page 8

PROTEST AGAINST CHARGE

POWER BOARD MEMBERS. PERUSAL OF DOCUMENTS. [ Special “Chronicle” Service ] AUCKLAND, July 22. Objection to an account for £368 issued by a firm of Wellington solicitors for perusing and verifying documents relating to the raising by the Auckland Power Board of a loan of £250,000 from the Australian Mutual Provident Society wag made at a meeting of the Board to-day. Members expressed the opinion that the amount charged was quite unwarranted. It was decided to pay the account and to enter a protest against the firm’s high demands. “Mention is made of the trouble involved but that is very slight,” said the chairman, Mr W. J. Holdsworth. “The greatest trouble was borne by our own office and by our solicitors, who drew up the documents connected with the debentures. All that the solicitors in Wellington hai to do was to scrutinise the papers and see that they were all right. Picking up sovereigns is hard work compared with what they had to do. In addition they want to be paid before we get the money. It will be about two years before we raise the whole amount.” Mr T. Bloodworth: It only goes to show the truth of Shakespeare’s dictum: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” The Chairman: I do not know of an easier way of making money, not even on the totalisator.

Mr J. Rowe; There is only one man that I know who could beat a lawyer over charges, and that is a plumber. The plumber will charge for every conceivable thing on the j°b and he will wind up by asking for so much for spirits. The Chairman: Our own solicitors, who had the work of drawing up all these documents, charged only about half what we are now being challenged upon to pay.