The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1888. Manchester Road Board

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 135, 14 June 1888, Page 2

The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1888. Manchester Road Board

The result of the poll to be taken on Monday next by the ratepayers of No. 5 ward of the Manchester Eoad District for or against the proposals to raise a sum of £4000 for public works, will exercise, for good or evil, a considerable influence over the future welfare of the settlers on either side of the roads on which certain allotted portions of the moneys proposed to be raised, are intended to be spent. We say at once we think any elector who votes against the loan will be guilty of an error of judgment, for the following reasons : — Each sum of money placed on the schedule must be spent on the particular road named— and no other. Not one penny of it can be diverted from its legitimate purpose. We have carefully gone through the list, and we have failed to discover a single chain of road which is not absolutely required in the way of either assisting settlers already on the land, or of developing the resources of the district, and so inducing new settlers to cast in their lot with them, and thus further divide the inevitable — rate burdens. We know that part of the schedule relating to the proposed bridge over the Oroua river at Aorangi is the groat stumbling block with many of the ratepayers in Upper Taonui who ruly assert chat as they already have bzidge accommodation sufficient for their own wants, it is no object to them whether a new bridge at Aorangi be erected or not. That view is an entirely selfish one, but, under existing circumstances, perhaps somewhat excusable seeing the impression obtains among several settlers that the Board has not treated them with evenhanded justice m the past. Be that as it may, we would advise such to " let the dead past bury its dead." It is the future we have to deal with now. Admitting that the voting is favorable on Monday, the ratepayers will secure the making of their roads absolutely; but they will not, after all, have saddled themselves with the £1500 for the half cost of the bridge at Aorangi, for the very excellent reason that there are several other bodies of ratepayers in adjoining districts to be consulted, and it is very problematical whether these will consent to undertake their respective shares, under all circumstances, for the next two or three, or even more years. Until they do so the contribution of the Manchester Eoad Board cannot be expended, and therefore cannot be a charge oh the ratepayers of No. 5 ward. After the roads are completed the cost of their mainten* ance will not absorb the fd rate. This rate may possibly be reduced to a id, and with the roads made the ratepayers have only to pay the same amount as they have now to pay with the roads only partly made. Therefore our advice is to vote for the schedule as it stands now, because, as a further reason, if this opportunity is not seized, another will not be given for years to come, perhaps never. The roads cannot be made out of revenue, and therefore must be made out of loan.