LAWRENCE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 17, 17 August 1888, Page 29

LAWRENCE.

(From an occasional Correspondent.) 13th August 1888. THB financial condition of the County has been monopolising public attention throughout this district for the past few weeks. The local paper here in some of its recent issues made an exhaustive study of the subject, and certainly elicited facts not at all creditable to the administrative capacity of the members of the County Council. The Council's over-draft at the present moment amounts to the reproachful sum of £5,900 or thereabouts. The annual expenditure of the County ov interest exceeds £400, the official expenses swamping the balance of the rates wrung from the settlers of the County, with the exception of a small Bum of three or four hundred pounds devoted to the formation and repair of the County roads. This is h dark and a menacing picture for the hard hit 6ettlers of Tuapeka to meditate on. Even the Auditor-General, from his official perch in Wellington, has Bent a word or two of warning, and counselled reformation ; oiherwise, he significantly remarks, he may be impelled to " release himself from the very disagreeable duty imposed on him by the 214 th section of the Act." It seems the County overdraft exceeds the statutable limit by £1,300 ; and hence the salutary bint from the lynx-eyed official above Darned. As is usual ia euch cases, wben the members of the Council have been reluctantly compelled to acknowledge the gravity of the situation, they endeavour to exonerate themselves by directing the public gazo exclusively towards the officials acd the official expenses of the ebtablishment. The int ernal economy of the Council is decidedly loose, and demands instant aud unsparing reform. But in what termi of condensation is it possible to speak of those members <f the Council who have, year after year, silently watched the growth of this extravagance, while the revenue continued to diminish, the people became poorer, and, no doubt, the overdraft continued gracefully to expand, without exciting a ripple of dUcontent, or a single word of remonstrance. But this is not all. Can anything more senseless be conceived than the attendance of Councillors at those monthly meetings, charging their expenses to the County, to scramble for the few miserable pounds that escape the official maw. 'Why should the expenditure of a few hundred pounds a year necessitate the meeting of such an asemblage of Councillors, even every alternate month. Why cannot some amicible arrangement be made, by which, for a time at least, the affairs of the County moy be administered by three instead of nine memberi aa at piesent. Mr. Livingstone's readiness, expressed at last meeting, to forego his claim to expenses, while exhibiting a degree of public spirit that might be very well more generally imitated, though probably instigated by a well-filled private exchequer, is scarcely commendable in principle. Councillors have an equal right with officials to be remunerated for their services, and, moreover, the times and the seasons haTdly permit of much generosity just now, even on the part of County Councillors. At a meeting of the Council held on Saturday, Mr. Bennett proposed that the offices of clerk, treasurer, pnd engineer be combined. Mr, Bennett's motion received the unanimous appioval of the Council, and a sub-committee was appointed to bring up a jeport at next meeting. Fiom the tenor of the motion it is evident that the services of one o: other of the two (fficial* now employed by the Council will be dispensed with. The prospect for those gentlemen is not a pleasant one, and 1 am confident there is not a member of the Coutc I but regretn keenly being driven to to so disagreeable ajui unp!ea-ant an expedien 1 . However, in this, as in a hundred pother sioiilir ca^s of daily occurence throughout the country, tiere is uo alternative but to gamely face the inevitable —The (secretary of the defunct Waipoii Deep Lead Prospecting Association asked that tke funds of that association, now held by the Council, be handed over tj the Waipori School of Mines. Professor Black als* wrote urging the same ieque»t, as the money, he stated, would help to pay an instructor during the summer. Councillor Cotton

very properly objected to the money being frittered away on fuoh. an object, and suggested instead, that it be expended in repairing the road to the bnsb, so that timber for mining purposes might bo more readily obtained.— Mr. Barr'a report on the navigation of the Clutha, from Tuapeka Mouth to the Beaumont, was favourably considered by the Council. The cost of making the river navigable for small steamers to the latter place would amount to little over a, thousand pounds, and would result in throwing open for settlement a very large area of some of the best land in Otago, At present there is no outlet for produce, and consequently the land remains nnocoupied. Whatever adverse, but literally true, comment I may at times feel justified in making on the affairs of the Blue Spur and Gabriel's Gully Consolidated Gold Company, it must be conceded that the operations of the Company are carried on with a vigour and despatoh that le»v« nothing to be desired in that direction. The working of the property bas been entrusted to Mr. H. Clayton, and a man mo.-c eminently fitted for the position is certainly not to be had m the district. Mr. Clayton's acquaintance with the Blue Spur goes well back into the '60's, and has continued for many years with varying success. If ever the shareholders' ambitious dream of wealth should be realised, th.y will, indeed, be largely indebted to the present nunager. There are now some 20 men, or more, in the claim, working in three shifts of eight hours each, with three jets of Nothing has as yet transpired in connection with the working "of lietherstone a Flat, though, I understand, an effort will be made in due time to form a company and thoroughly work the ground. The number of idle men here just now is unprecedently large. On the Blue Spur alone there are over thirty miners— many of them heads of families— out of employment. Twelve months ago there were big expectations on the Spur of a coming " boom," now the prospect it indeed anything bat bright, and at present there is little to hope for. Amid the general stagnation and decay tae money-lending estab* lishments, ghoui-like, continue to grow rich and powerful. This is not to be wondered at when we see the Tuapeka County Council paylnS * 9 a week interest on borrowed money. The borrowing policy of the General Gorernment in Wellington seems to have been very faith, fully imitated by our little legislators nearer homo.