The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1892. Borough Affairs

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 10, 12 July 1892, Page 2

The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1892. Borough Affairs

At the last meeting of the Council a proposal waa received from a Wellington firm to open negotiations with the view of the latter erecting gas works in Feilding. As a matter of course the word " concessions " occupied a prominent position in the letter. " While we agree with those Councillors who thought the question premature, yet we cannot help feeling that before many years are over, the increase of population and the erection of many more business and private houses, will compel us to seriously consider ; the necessity for lighting the Borough either with gas or electricity. But, as the Municipal Corporations Act of 1886 in Clauses '353, 4, 5, and 6, already gives the Council full power to do this work for themselves, we cannot at present see why it should not —when the time comes— be done without the help of a private firm. The Council would have to make very liberal " concessions " which always mean money in some shape or form, and we would sooner see the burgesses reaping the advantages of these than outsiders. It is not likely that any firm or syndicate would expend a large sum of money in Feilding from mere philanthropy. When tho Feilding Borough next moves iv the direction of borrowing money for public works, we may say that there is a general expectation among the rate* payers, who have to bear the burden, that suitable municipal buildings svill form a prominent item in the schedule. It is to be understood that the Council will do nothing without thoroughly debating the matter, and at any rate not until after the places of the three retiring members, whose term will expire in September, haye been filled, and their successors have given expression to their opinions on this and other subjects of interest to the Borough.