THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 31, 1882. THE ST. ALBANS’ LOAN.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2690, 21 November 1882, Page 2

THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 31, 1882. THE ST. ALBANS’ LOAN.

A meeting of tho burgesses of the borough of Sfc. Albans will be held this evening, to consider the advisability of raising a loan of £IO,OOO for municipal purposes. The works proposed to be done by the money, if the loan is sanctioned, are tho widening, re-forming and metalling the roads within the borough, the formation of footpaths and the sinking of wells for watering purposes and for works incidental thereto. All those works are necessary ones in a district which is becoming thickly populated, but it is more than possible that a considerable amount of opposition against tho scheme will manifest itself, because there are always a certain class of people who object to bo rated, be tho purposes on which the capital is expended ever so worthy. In tho present instance it may bo mentioned incidentally that the Council hope that, with care, no rates additional to those now levied will be necessitated by the new loan. Tho loan. It ia expected, will bo raised at 6 per cent., so that tho interest to be met annually will amount to £6OO. Tho first year’s interest will bo taken from the loan fund, as authorized by the Municipal Corporations Act. The second year it ia assumed that tho roads, having been so recently put ia order, but little will be required for repairs and maintenance, and that, therefore, the interest can be covered out of ordinary revenue, and the special rate included in the levy of Is in the £ now annually raised. After the third year the Council consider that the increased value of the rateable property within tho borough will bo amply sufficient to defray the annual charges of the loan without any burden

on the ratepayers beyond the la in the £ now raised.

If there was any certainty about this forecast of the Council, wo presume that no one would care to oppose the proposals. To have the roads widened and formed, footpaths made, and wells sunk, without the ratepayers being more pushed by taxation than they are at present, must certainly meet the views of the most exacting. But we may bo very certain that any opponents of the scheme will at once declare that the Council aro oversanguiue, and that the ratepayers will have to bear additional taxation, as the result of the improvements made in the Borough. We will assume, for argument sake, that those gentlemen would ba to a certain extent right, and that the ratepayers weald have to put their hands a little deeper in their pockets, as the result of the work done. We hold that, , even if such were the case, the raising of the loan would bo very desirable, looking to the uses to which it is to ba put, and presuming that the money will judiciously expanded. In fact, we might go so far as to say that the carrying out of such works as those proposed, which evidently cannot be paid for out of current revenue, is the only logical outcome of the existence of the Borough. One of the main advantages attached to such a corporate body as the St. Albans Council is that it possesses credit, and that it can draw on that credit for the good of tbe bnrgesses. The main object of the formation of the Borough was that the place might be made properly inhabitable and healthy. In the days when the district was in the hands bf the Bead Board, people complained, naturally enough, that nothing was done for what had in reality become a town. Certain works were necessary, the Road Board did not, and could not, act in the matter, and consequently the Borough came into existence. We cannot conceive that any burgess of St. Albans would wish the old state of things to return, and yet, if improvements have to be made, they will either have to be paid for out of current revenue or out of loan. If the former, they will evidently have to be done in such minute instalments that the ultimate cost of the works will be far larger than if the whole were done by moderately sized contracts. Besides, the inhabitants will miss years of comfort, and the health of the district will suffer from the want ot proper regard being paid to it. So that the burgesses will bleed in two ways—they will pay more for the work done and will lose largely in the matter of health and comfort.

The opponents to the scheme will probably pose as economists, but those who taka them at their word will be very foolish indeed. If these false economists could once prove that the works proposed were unnecessary or a mere matter of luxury, their arguments would he sound enough, hat no one doubts that the improvements must be done sooner or later. The question merely is, what ia the cheapest way of getting them performed. We do not bring forward the theory that tho beat plan in such matters is to leave it to our descendants to pay tho main cost, because we are aware that this theory does not at the present time meet with much favor. People have got into tho habit of thinking that their descendants will be a long time before they step into their shoes, and they prefer to ignore them altogether. But the reason we favor the borrowing of the £IO,OOO is that absolutely necessary work will be done more cheaply thereby, and that the burgesses will stop into an improved condition of life more rapidly than they would do if the improvements were made piecemeal. Any small addition to the rates, if such addition has indeed to ho made, will be far more than compensated f.r hy tho altered surroundings in tho Borough. What a large amount of harm may he done by a falsely economical faction getting the upper hand in a borough may be shewn by what has of late taken place in Christchurch. Sensible men have long been aware of tho ultimate necessity of a water scheme for the Municipality, hut tho pseudo-economists have hitherto had their way, and the consequence is that tha water supply remains as much of a necessity as ever, and the city, when it is procured, will bo burdened with a number of water tanks, erected at groat cost, and which will then he of little or no value. If tho anti-loan faction got tho upper hand in tho meeting at St. Albans, the outcome will ha that there will be a lengthened tinkering at endeavoring to improve tbs streets, Ac. In tho meantime everybody will bo very uncomfortable for an indefinite period, and the only people who will rejoice will he the doctors, the undertakers, and tho shoemakers. And the odds are that a loan will have to be raised after all, when tha anti-loan faction have become properly chastened hy doctors’ bills, dust, and general inconveniences.