Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1885-02-27
City Finances.

City Finances.
The wrestling of the New Age with the
finances of our city, in order to blind and
dupe it's readers, will fail to accomplish
the object intended.
We answered sufficiently its statement
of last week in regard to the saving on
salaries, when we stated in an article re-
Gently that all salaries are fixed by ordi-
nance, and that they cannot be changed
without first changing the ordinance by
which they are established. They are the
same under the government of the pres
ent year as under that of last year. To
repeat the statement as the New Age does
this week shows that it depends solely
upon falsehood to sustain itself.
But the scheme most relied upon by the
New Age to delude its readers is that of
incorporating the payments from the
treasury this year as compared with those
made last year. This comparison is un-
fair in that it sets the disbursements of the
whole year 1884 against those of but a
part of the year 1885. If the New Age
had good case, one that would stand
upon it's own merits, why not present the
facts fairly. and let its readers be their
own Judges in this matter? By its method
the disbursements of the municipal year
lsS45 are clipped at both ends.
pavmantc m ado in tho CARLY mart IF tho
year are set aside as belonging to the pre-
vous wear This is a novel mode of re-
ducing disbursements. Who, pray will
pay the bills left over from the present
government if it be not the government
tina, is to follow it? And who can say
that they will not be as large or larger
than the bills which came over from the
last government for the present to pay
Year by year, since we had a government,
it has been the inevitable, never falling
rule, which no government can evade or
prevent, that every government pays bills
incurred by the government that went be-
fore it. 1t is lust as fair to set aside the
interest paid on the city debt the present
year. and maintain that it should not be
reckoned among the disbursements of this
year. because the debt was contracted twen-
ty or thirty years ago. rs it is
to set aside bills of 1854. paid in 1870
and make pretence of reducing the dis.
bursments of the year by that amount
There was lap from 1884 to 1884-5,
and there will be lap from 1S84-5 to
1856, and it is probable that the sum
which will lap over at the close Of this
city government will be as large in amount
as that which Tapped over at the close of
the last government.
After thus curtailng disbursements at
the opening Of the year, the New Age on
~ brings it figures to the first of February,
and then makes its comparison OF ex-
pendtures in this year shortened at both
ends with that of the total twelve months
for the year before. With these clippings
and these misrepresentation the New Age
hopes to succeed in deceiving our citizens.
We do not believe that our board of al
dermen have any hand in the decep-
tive and false statements which
have appeard in the New Age. They
are the coinage OF Plaisted Morton, & Co.
But the New Age casts discredit upon
them when it resorts to base falsehoods
apparently in their behalf as though their
acts could not stand to be honestly and
fairly presented to the people.