WAITEMATA COUNTY LOANS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 231, 30 September 1929, Page 9

WAITEMATA COUNTY LOANS.

It appears to me that ratepayers in general, and county ratepayers in particular, are up against a very serious problem which will have far-reaching and unexpected results for them if they do not wake up and bestir themselves. At the la<st meeting of the Waitemata County Council the clerk reported that legislation was being put through enabling county councils to raise email loans that were petitioned for, by a process which would cut out what lie describes as the lengthy proceedings under the Local Government Loans Board Act. and the cost of raising the loan. In other words, the object and effect is to gradually deprive the ratepayers of the right to themselves by ballot whether they approve or otherwise of any particular loan. As the cost of any particular loan is comparatively small, the excuse offered for the proposed legislation under that head is trivial. As regards small loans, does the county clerk consider the £10,000 loan foisted on the ratepayers of the Waitakere Biding against their expressed wishes to be what he describes as a "small loan"? I consider it a fairly large and substantial loan to be saddled on to unwilling ratepayers. On what grounds does the clerk also report that the proposed legislation "is going through"? Perhaps—and perhaps not. As to the other excuse about the lengthy proceedings under the Local Government Loans Board Act, my experience is that there is nothing in the Act entailing any unnecessarily lengthy procedure or involving any extra work on the members of any local body. The Act in question is one of the best pieces of legislation passed by the late Reform Government, and is an Act that was long overdue. That it has proved beneficial to the real interests of the ratepayers appears to be evident by the frantic efforts of local body officiate to nullify the effects of that Act, and if they are permitted through the apathy of the ■ ratepayers to tsucceed in their efforts not only will the provisions and safeguards of the Local Government Loans Board Act be evaded but the ballot box itself will disappear as a means of ratepayers expressing approval or disapproval of any loan proposals. They will simply be saddled with loans according to the whims or activities of any particular coterie, whether the object be good, bad or indifferent. Already it is fairly common knowledge that local body loans have about got to their limit, and yet we have this definite statement on the. part of the Waitemata County Council that they are fostering legislation with the express object of evading an Act designed to apply the brake on reckless and foolish local body expenditure, and the clerk states confidently "that it is going through." J. H. HAYES.