The Globe. TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 848, 13 March 1877, Page 2

The Globe. TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 1877.

In view of the importance of the question to be submitted to the ratepayers at the public meeting to-night, we may perhaps be pardoned for again referring to the subject. As we understand it, the meeting is called as a preliminary step to the plebiscite or vote of the citizens being taken. At it information will, we suppose, be laid before the ratepayers by the projectors and supporters of the scheme, upon which the former will be asked to form their opinion. It will, of course, be equally open to the opponents of the projected expenditure to state their case, and then the public must draw their own conclusions. What we want to impress on the ratepayers is that they shall demand from the projectors of the scheme —which is to result in a palatial City Hall fitted with offices, &c, without costing anything —a clear and comprehensive statement of facts. It will not do for them to be satisfied with speculative or visionary statements. They must have some solid basis to go upon before they consent to the expenditure of £30,000. The case may be put in a few words. The city is asked to consent to £30,000 being borrowed to be expended on what all will admit we can well do without for some time at least. Both the City Hall and the widening of the street are luxuries —not necessities—and yet we are asked to expend a large sum for what we do not absolutely want, “ But,” say the supporters of the project, “ if you don’t buy the section now, when you want to erect a Town Hall you will have to pay pretty dear for it.” (Granted ; but we have not forgotten one fact, which these gentlemen appear 10 have done, viz, that there is already a site available for Municipal purposes which we cau use, without paying a fancy price fo.r Mr. Morten’* section. When the time comes that U'i edifice such os appears to he con

templated by Cr Hobbs and his friends is necessary for the City, we can build it on a site quite as central as the one now proposed, and far cheaper. As regards the street widening, we do not attach much weight to that part of the argument. Cities of five or six times our size and treble or fourfold the traffic, conduct their business with thoroughfares no wider—if so wide as Colombo street, and surely we can do the same here. Let the Council, as we pointed out in a former article, imitate other colonial cities, and make it imperative for vehicles to walk round corners, and thus [regulate the traffic within proper bounds, and we shall hear no more for years to come of the insufficient width of our streets.