The Ashburton Guardian, COUNTY AGRICULTURAL & SPORTING RECORDER THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1880.

Ashburton Guardian, 6 May 1880, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian, COUNTY AGRICULTURAL & SPORTING RECORDER THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1880.

The usual monthly statement of the Chairman of the County Council is especially interesting to ratepayers in the district affected by the proposed County Waterworks Amendment Bill, and we would advise them to consider the statement well before they write “ Dissenting” on the voting papers that have been supplied to them. Mr. Walker goes very carefully into the powers sought to bo conferred upon the County Council by the proposed Bill, and points out clearly and without any equivocation the exact position in which an affirmative vote to the Bill will place the ratepayers. He very plainly shows how the rights of the ratepayers have been hedged around by safeguards that must prevent them from being burdened by overwhelming taxation for the water supply scheme proposed to be introduced, and how the borrowing powers of the Council in this matter will be regulated by the acreage to be supplied, and restricted to a sum that a maximum tax of sixpence an acre in the area supplied will be able to support. A careful perusal of the Chairman’s statement, which has evidently been delivered more for the ratepayers than for the Council, will show that the vote is virtually taken j ust now on the principle of whether a water supply scheme should be extended for purposes of general utility by loan. With this principle, we do not think many rateratepayers will quarrel, and seeing that, as the Chairman puts it, not a.single sixpence can be raised without their sanction, we cannot anticipate the least opposition on tho part of ratepayers to the Bill intended to be introduced. We commend a thought ful perusal of Mr. Walker’s remarks to all concerned in the question of a water supply for tiie plains. •