"NOTHING ATTEMPTED, NOTHING DONE."

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 213, 9 March 1895, Page 2

" NOTHING ATTEMPTED, NOTHING DONE."

TO THE EI>IT«.»n OF THE STAR. Sir,— At last the Borough Council have bestirred themselves re Municipal Buildings, but it would have been far better to have remained inactive rather than to have passed the resolution "to have a poll of the ratepayers for the loan to erect the Municipal Buildings on the corner of Kimbolton road and Stafford street." As every absentee's vote will count against the loan there is not any more chance of carrying it than there is of the present Government doing any good for our country ; but, apart from politics, what could be a more generous offer than that made by the Colonists' Land and Loan Corporation •• to put up the buildings, the Borough Council to rent them, and, when the rent paid has amounted to the cost of buildings, to hand the buildings over as a present to the Council?" That is the offer made by the Corpo. ration, and yet the Council throw over a certainty for an absolute uncertainty. I am aware tbat any "purchasing clause" in the deeds between the Colo» nists 1 Land and Loan Corporation and the Council would, perhaps, amount to a loan from the Corporation, or an equivalent, but as the Council are now paying £50 a year for a " shanty," why should they not pay ±150 a year for ten years for a respectable building, which would become their own and would be of some use to the burgesses ? I main* tain that the question should have been discussed at a public meeting, for although the Council are the mouthpieces of the ratepayers they were none of them elected on the "ticket" of " Borough Council Chambers" or "No Borough Council Chambers," therefore, they do not know what the ratepayers desire upon such an important matter as the Borough Council Chambers. Now, as to the site, would it not be better for the said Chambers to be erected in tbe Square ? It is true that a road round ' the Chambers would take, perhaps, one • and a-quarter seconds longer than a straight road through the Square, but in these days of " bikes " the time would be reduced to five-sixteenths of a second longer by going round, and that would not be a serious loss of time. I am certain that many of the ratepayers would prefer to sit in a building erected on a clean healthy site as the Square is rather than sit in a building erected on a low-lying section, which is a bog in winter, and where the whiffs of strong ammonia from the stables close by will go through every room, and every nostril in that room. Oh ! what a time the Town Clerk will have, but the Council : will only he there at night, with all the doors closed, so they won't mind. I am, etc., Townk Labk.