View report page

28
The legislature has taken eare that every publicity which it considered
desirable should be given to the proceedings of the Metropolitan
Vestries and District Boards by directing (sec. 61), not only
that the minutes of their proceedings, account books, contracts, &c.,
should be open to the inspection of any ratepayer or owner of property
in the district, but that an annual report of their proceedings,
accounts, contracts, debts, &c., should be published and sold at a
merely nominal price; and the Board confidently appeal to this
report to prove that they not only do not shrink from such publicity,
but that they have endeavoured to place in the hands of every
person interested the utmost information on the several subjects
coming within their cognizance.
Ratepayers too impatient to await its publication, have, however,
been sought, and from time to time assembled in various parts of
the Parish, and have arrived at resolutions urging upon the Board
the revocation of their decision on the subject; but no means have
been furnished them for ascertaining whether such meetings really
represented the wishes of the great body, or what proportion, of the
ratepayers, and the Board maintained throughout the year the course
they had originally laid down for themselves, conceding only that
the minutes of their proceedings should have still further publicity
by being opened to any accredited reporter of the press, as soon as
they were signed, as required to give them full validity.
These vexed questions are now, however, it is hoped, finally set
at rest, the much coveted boon of the admission of the press having
been recently granted.