WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 July 1921, Page 1

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE LOAN. PROSPECTS AND PURPOSES. (Our Special Correspondent;. WELLINGTON, June 29 Ministers here have no anxiety in regard to the success of the live million loan. Information from London is to the effect that the time is opportune for the flotation —as opportune, that is, as any time can be under existing conditions—and that New Zealand’s credit stands high in the money-market. .The Dominion is reaping some of the material fruit of the effort and sacrifice it made during the war. The newspapers are discussing the purposes to which the loan is to be applied, lmt at the moment ibis appears to be a little, superfluous. The Government.lias authorities to borrow a considerably larger amount than five millions for public works, chieflly hydro-electric installation and railways, and by the time it has restored front the present loan the amounts temporarily 1 transferred from the Consolidated Fund it is not .likely to have any sum going n’begging. CITY FINANCE. Mr R. A. .Wright, the new Mayor of Wellington, is an administrator of the old school, as he says himself, and he secs only one way of putting tbe city’s much disturbed financial bouse in order. Tbe substantial increase in tbe valuations has saved the -Mayor and His Council from the necessity of raising, the rates, and. indeed, has enabled them to make trilling reductions in certain direct on a; but Mr Wright is not going to allow the sports grounds, the golf iinks and the Zoo to bo any longer burdens upon the general body ot ratepayers. The people who used tbe sports grounds and the golf links are to pay for their sport and the folk who want to gaze at “bears and tigers” are to. do so at their own expense. In the same way people who cannot afford to pay higher tram fares are to walk. It is iho way of tho old school. RICH BUT SHORT OF CASH.

The “Post” in reviewing the city’s tonmcial position says it reveals an abundance of assets and' a shortage ot cath. From this it to an emphatic endorsement of the Mayor’s policy. “The tramways, the electric lighting, the Zoo, tho reserves and the organ recitals,*” it says, “have revenues i their o\. t, and the Council should be : .flexible in the principle that the tramways and the electric lighting should

ay their own way.” Nor does it see any reason why' the goll Minks, the music or the Zoo should be relieved from this necessity, though it lias some lingering doubts about ti:c efficacy of ,!iLJi prices, high taxes and high charges to cure the financial ills of the city. Other critics, less careful of the feelings of the Mayor and his councillors, are declaring that so far as the tramways and the electric light are-con-cerned higher charges would mean less revenue and that the real need of these services is -better management. WASTING MONEY.

Mr M. A. CaiT, the president of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, i oml by. sonic remarks made by the Acting Prime Minister when excusing the growth of expenditure upon the Public Service, lias returned to his appeal for frank and honest retrenchment. “While the Government recognised that reduction in the expenditure was necessary,” a condensation of his remarks runs, “any retrenchment wag postponed and the had given was not that required by the country. The pruning knife should he applied in all Government- Departments, and retrenchment should start at the top, not from Hie bottom.”. His colleagues on. the Council of the Chamber are not very eager in their support of Mr Carr’s pro-, test, they realising, no doubt, the magnitude of the task with which Sir Fran--cjs, Bell is confronted, but unless someone in authority dares todeal with this great problem "drastically its . Public Service will become an., intolerable burden to the Dominion,