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12
October previously, in respect to the then pending School Board
Election.
We at once met and examined into the matter, with the result
that we found the expenditure quite regular and justifiable, and
accordingly we saw no grounds for interference, and we so
informed the School Board. The Board's Solicitor then gave us
notice of his intention to attend the next audit, then ensuing, as
a "ratepayer," and to object to all the expenses incurred by the
Vestry in connexion with the issue of the said circular. In due
course he did so, and was afforded every facility for examining
the accounts. We afterwards listened carefully and patiently to
the ingenious and skilful arguments and citations advanced by
him against allowing the items in dispute, and also to his warning
as to the legal consequences, and the probable application
for a Writ of Certiorari. Those arguments, however, being
entirely unsupported by any authority in law, failed to convince
us, and we allowed all the accounts, stating our reasons for so
doing, as the law requires. We also gave the Solicitor notice of
such allowance, and furnished him with a printed copy of our
reasons. We have since then been expecting to be served with
the Writ, so eloquently foreshadowed in June. Instead of this,
however, we have just discovered from the Minutes of the School
Board, dated September 29th last, that after consulting their
solicitor, the Committee to whom the matter was referred report
that they—
"Do not consider it desirable to take any further steps in
the matter," and ask that the reference may "be discharged,"
and it has been discharged accordingly.
Thus the arrogance of December, 1891, becomes a humiliation
in September, 1892.
How a Board of such magnitude and importance, with more
than half-a-dozen eminent counsel among its members, could
have permitted such a fiasco almost passes the imagination.
In our letter of December last, we said: "It is a matter of
surprise to us that so important a body as the School Board for
London should have acted with so much precipitancy and with
so little apparent appreciation of the provisions of the Metropolis
Management Acts as their letter discloses; and we fear
that it is but an additional proof that resolutions of the Board
are too often passed hastily, and without due consideration."
Strong as that language was, we feel to-day that it is fully
justified.
We consider it our duty to report to you the termination of
this matter, and to point out to you that after all the unnecessary
trouble they have caused, the School Board has not had the
courtesy to inform us of its decision, and we have been left to
find it out as best we could.