Amalgamation Proposal.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 612, 25 May 1891, Page 3

Amalgamation Proposal.

[to the editor. I Sib, —l have read many articles and letters on the subject of the amalgamation of the offices of our three local bodies—Borough, County Council, and Harbor Board,—and so far have seen nothing to alter my impression, formed weeks ago, that amalgamation such as has been proposed would best serve the interests of ratepayers in all respects. I am, I may say, practical, having had years more experience than 99 per cent, of your correspondents. I can safely assume that the present staff at the post and telegraph office here would get through twice the volume of work that would require to be undertaken by the three officials that it is proposed to employ to conduct the clerical work for the amalgamated offices of Borough and County Councils and Harbor Board. Take the postal (for such we will call them) officials and study the work they have to do: —

Ist—Receive and despatch the inward and outward mails arriving and departing by four, if not more, steamers weekly, the ordinary coast and inland mails, and the various duties attendant upon letter delivery, etc., to applicants for the same.

2nd—The conduct of the electric telegraph department, wher,by considerably more ac tual work in the way of writing has to be done in one week than the amalgamated office wou'd have to face in a month—it is all, or nearly all, clear copy and no brain work in bo:h cases. The officers are called upon to evolve nothing. In the case of the various Board officials, they will take their directions and write according to orders; the telegraph operators receive and despatch, for the bulk of their work, such correspondence as has been evolved from the brains of contributors. ’J he effort is Ihe same for both Council and Telegraph officials, in this respect that copying mainly would form the bulk of their work.

3rd—ln addition to the work which falls upon Post and Telegraph, as before set out, we must not lose sight of the fact that the P.O. Savings Bank must afford almost as much clerical labor daily, in the issue of receipts for deposits and in making payments under withdrawal demands from their depositors, as the Council (amalgamated) officials would have to face during the same period. Let me ask for a moment, what are the hours of the Post and Telegraph people ? Echo answers, six o’clock on Sunday moroing till nine o’clock on Saturday night, and never do we hear a murmur from them. Of course I know they do not work the night through, but the Government gets the value which is represented by their presence at all times when business is likely to be transacted, so the public have nothing to grumble at. Before c’osing, I would like to point out the utter absurdity of the remarks published by some of_ those public writers who have aired their ideas on this subject in regard to payments which have been made for rates for two bodies in one cheque. I say, and I do so with knowledge of my subject, that any individual could draw his cheque to cover fifteen or twenty rates, or one hundred if need be, and pay it to one man, and a perfect check could be brought into play, whereby it could be ascertained that such a payment had been properly applied, and there would be no difficulty in carrying this through in a general way. Further, wfeit is there to prevent the amalgamated bodies from keeping a general account into which all rec ip’s could be deposited daily’ The Chief Clerk to the amalgamated Council could have his books kept in such a way that a periodical (say weekly) distribution of the funds collected could be made to the three bodies concerned, such distribution to be made on the (say) weekly audit of the accounts by two experienced members of a joint Finance Committee, and any cheques enabling such distribution to be made being signed by lhem. I have little doubt but that Messrs Bright and Shelton could carry through such a duty in half an hour weekly —I am, etc.,