Again, from a business point of view a proportion of office
expenses would be properly debited to a Division as part of the
cost of each work ; in the case of works paid for out of special
rates that is authorized to be done under the provisions of sec.
261. If it were not for the second proviso an ambiguity would
have arisen as to whether the debits to be charged against a
Division were to include a proportion of office expenses, and, if so,
what proportion, or, if not specified in the Act, to be fixed by
what authority. The proviso makes the intention of the legisla-
ture plain by enacting that, except where the expenditure is
out of special rates within the terms of sec, 261, all salaries,
allowances, and expenses of office management shall be paid out
of general revenues and shall not be debited to the separate
account of any Division. In my opinion, therefore, the provisos
deal with the keeping of accounts only, and in no way cut down
the power given by see. 192 of applying the general rates as part
of the Local Fund in the general administration of the Act.
Indeed, that view of the provisos could not, I think, be questioned
were it not that in both of them the expressions are used
"defrayed out of the general revenues" and "paid out of the
general revenues " as correlative to the expression "debited to
the separate account of any Division." The argument is that the
phrase "debited to," having been used in the provisos in the
sense, as it is contended, of "paid out of" or "defrayed from,"
must be taken to have the same meaning in the earlier part of
the section, and that the second paragraph of the section must
therefore be read as if the words were "all moneys expended
upon works within the limits of a Division shall be defrayed out
of the funds of that Division."