THE GLOBE. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1880.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1862, 11 February 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1880.

The City Council having announced their intention of placing the question of tho raising of the loans for water supply and municipal buildings before tho ratepayers at once, it is perhaps tho most opportune time to draw attention to the provisions of the Act with regard to the decision. Tho clauses referring to the raising of loans run from 139 to 149 of the Act of 1876. Tha first step to be taken is for the Council to publish a notice for four successive weeks, setting forth the work proposed to be undertaken, tho sum proposed to be borrowed, and the security to be given. At a date not more than ten day* after the publication of the last notice, the Mayor is to call a meeting to discuss the proposal. This having been done, tho Mayor has to give notice of a poll to be taken on the proposition, the day for such poll being not less than one nor more than three weeks from the day of the meeting. Notice has to ha given to the Returning Officer requiring a poll to bo taken, and thereupon a poll is arranged for on the day named in the manner provided by the Regulations of Local Elections Act. The voting papers have to contain the proposal as set forth in the original notice, with two distinct lines printed underneath as follows : —“ I vote for the above proposal,” and “ I vote against the above proposal.” The voters erase either one or other of these lines. The number of votes polled for tho proposal must exceed those given against it by one-fifth, and unless this is so the resolution shall be deemed to be rejected. Should tho resolution bo carried tho Mayor has to give notice to the Colonial Secretary, who is required to publish the same in the “ Gazette.”

This, in brief, is the procedure which the ratepayers will have to go through in deciding the question to be put before them. At the public meeting, when the proposals are discussed, the Council will, we presume, be prepared to give such information on the subjects as will enable the ratepayers to come to an intelligent decision. As regards the water supply, as we have already pointed out, this information—which, under the circumstances, is indispensable—has not yet been afforded by the Council or the committee to whom the task of working out the details was committed. Wo have had a mass of calculations more or less abstruse as to the revenue to be derived from the supply of water, and the good results likely to accrue from the establishment of such a system. This, we have already pointed out, required little or no argument to prove. What the ratepayers wanted from the committee was a clear and business-like statement of the reasons which led them to adopt a scheme involving the laying of a number of miles of pipes as against others in which the distance from the source of supply was not so great. The Council have pinned their faith, so to speak, on this Waimakariri scheme, but in all their utterances, whether oral or documentary, they have failed to give the ratepayers the reasons which, in their minds, have weighed so strongly in its favor as compared with other schemes. This, we think, is information the citizens have a right to ask for. It seems to us impossible for tho people to make up their minds as to how they shall vote unless they have before thorn the necessary data upon which to base their judgment. They have, it is true, calculations as to revenue derivable, as to the amount of flow, as to the quantity per head of the population, and so on, all of which is exceedingly valuable information —so far as it goes. But there is nothing said about the advantages possessed by the Waimakariri scheme over others, no information given as to what other schemes were proposed and the reasons for their rejection in favour of tho one now propounded. It is not yet too late to rectify what seems to us to be an error of omission on the part of the committee. They were appointed by the Council to put the question of a loan for water supply before tho ratepayers in such a shape as would enable them to give their votes for or against the proposal, feeling that they knew something about it. But we venture to say that if a poll is taken on the information now before tho citizens, scarcely one-third of them will be in a position to give their votes with the consciousness that they are in possession of sufficient knowledge on the subject to come to unsatisfactory conclusion. This, to say the least of it, is hardly a state of things which should exist in connection with a scheme of such importance, and wo hope, therefore, that before the day of polling tho committee or tho Council will give tho citizens fuller and more explicit information on the subject wo have alluded f«.