The Daily Telegraph. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1883.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3593, 17 January 1883, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1883.

The recommendation of the municipal public works committee, to which we alluded yesterday, is tho first absolute intimation the ratepayers have received that the Corporation has " over-run tho constable." The committee to whom the question of watering the streets was referred recommends that the cost, or at least a portion of the cost, should be borne by the owners of properties in the streets that arc watered. This is neither more nor less than that a special tax should be imposed upon a portion of the ratepayers who are supposed to derive a particular benefit from a public work. The whole cost of watering the business streets of the town does not amount to much, but it is held by some that it is more than the Corporation can afford to pay. This is the natural but none the less miserable result of years' of mismanagement and extravagance. The ratepayers cannot say that their eyes have been shut to the extravagant character of the administration that has been going on since the consolidation of the borough loans. From the time the money was borrowed to the present time we have repeatedly called attention to the manner in which it was being spent. We are afraid that the reiteration of our censure of the conduct of public works was regarded by very many more as a nuisance than as a performance of the duty of the press. But, in whatever light our remarks may have been regarded, they had very little effect in stopping useless works, and the general extravagance that marked the administration of borough affairs. The inevitable time has now come upon us when, the money having been spent, the Corporation finds it impossible or next to impossible to carry out some of its functions without an appeal to the ratepayers for assistance. In our opinion it is the more disgraceful that a paltry £IGO a year for street wateringeannot be easily found from the fact that something like .l'2oo hasbcen spent since May last for streetkerbing. Instead of any inadequate check having been kept over the engineer's department, that officer has been allowed to do pretty much as he pleased. In the expenditure that he has entailed on behalf of the Corporation the engineer appears to have been mainly guided by tho plans and papers of his late predecessor. It would seem that a legacy of useless and expensive works was left to the present engineer to carry out, and we are now left to repent that tho legacy was not thrown away to the winds. But, in blaming the engineer, we arc not unmindful of the fact that it was always in the power of the Council to curtail that officer's power, and, indeed, to completely tie his hands. This, however, was not done ;he was almost left a perfectly free agent, and, 2>robably, the Council would be in the most charming state of ignorance as to the works and expenditure being carried out until the liability was made known when the vouchers for payment were presented. In default of definite instructions the engineer naturally enough would believe it to be his duty to proceed with the unfinished scheme of his predecessor. In any case the Council is responsible for every penny piece that has been wasted. In referring'- to the " Council"' we do not mean the particular set of members composing the existing Council — we mean the continuous body that administers the affairs of the borough. Waste and extravagance have been going on for years, and why there has been no reform, no economy of management, is because the general body of ratepayers have not in reality cared twopence about the matter. It may be said, indeed, that their apathy has been such that they have not cared who got into the Council, ' all the last elected (:) members having taken their scats unopposed, and in two instances vacancies went begging. Can it be a matter of surprise then that the apathy of the ratepayers should be reflected in the Council, and that those who have striven to effect reform should have found themselves in a hopeless minority, and received more kicks than half-pence for their pains r There is little enough left for the Council to do now but to endeavor to the best of its ability to reduce the overdraft. This can only be done by cutting down expenditure to the lowest possible limits. We do not think that there is any necessity for increasing the rates : there being abundance of security for the debt to the bank there need be no hurry to extinguish it. It will reduce itself in due course if the Council is true to its responsibilities, and insists upon a substantial balance to the good being shown year by year in the annual statements of receipts and expenditure.