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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3742, 13 July 1883, Page 2

A meeting of the ratepayers of the township of Hastings is called for this evening to consider the advisability of forming a Town District Board. A consideration of this question is none too soon. Few towns

in the colony have grown so rapidly as Hastings, and every month increases the difficulty that will have to be grappled with on."the establishment of a local governing body. As it is, we can scarcely help thinking that the township has outgrown the limits within which the Town Districts Act would be useful. We are of opinion that, when the ratepayers have resolved to secure local government, they would find more advantages under the Municipal Corporations Act. By forming the town into a borough they would escape the payment of county rates, not a penny piece of which would be likely to be spent on their streets. In the matter of administrative expenditure a Corporation need not necessarily bo moro expensive than a Board, nor a Mayor a more glittering dignitary than a chairman. The mere name of the governing body need frighten no one. If, however, the ratepayers think v they can get all they want by the adoption of the Town Districts Act, and in time discover that it has not answered expectations, there are tho same facilities for converting the Town District into a borough as though no local body had been established. It is to be trusted that at the meeting this evening the importance of making a commencement with drainage and other sanitary works will be fully recognised.