Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, NOV. 28, 1895. How to pay for a Loan.

Manawatu Herald, 28 November 1895, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, NOV. 28, 1895. How to pay for a Loan.

« We do not desire to coerce the Burgesses to raise a loan, but as we are convinced a loan is the best and only way to remedy the evils we. at present labour under in bad roadß, we should be glad if we could persuade them to agree to one. We will now proceed to show with how little trouble the interest on a loan could be met without further taxation. In the estimates for this year we find the following expenditure set down : —road maintenance, metal £10 ; roads, new metalling, &c, £310 7s sd; roads, wages and carting. £200; and contingencies, £50. In other words the estimates represent that there is the sum of £310 odd and £50 over and above the sums necessary to secure the due carrying out of the other neces-

sary Borough work, as £310 is stated to be available for now work and £50 is set; apart for contingencies. This sum of £860 represents interest at £6 per cent oil au amount of. £GOOO a great deal more than we require. We shall not name the actual sum required, but taking, for example, the suggestion that a loan of £3000 was necessary, and that this amount was obtained at six per cent interest, only £iBO of the £360 free money now useable, would be absorbed, leaving £180 for repairing other roads upon which the loan money was not spent. Nothing appears clearer from these figures, which can be relied on, being the figures supplied by the Borough Council, that there would be no difficulty in meeting the charges on a loan, even supposing times got worse than they are now. It will be argued by a few that the expenses of keeping the extra mileage of metalled road in order will absorb a very large sum, we know it will cost some money, how much i 3 what the Council May not possibly be able to show. If a loan of £3000 was raised, and used wholly for metalling, there would not be more than five or six miles of new metalling to attend to, and thus we doubt the strain upon the Borough financies for the following reasons. We have stated that the estimate of metal, presumably for repairing, is only £10, and as the Borough has some 12 miles of roads already metalled, the sum does not amount to £1 a mile. Again the item, wages and carting, which includes clearing drains, is only estimated at £200. On a rough calculation there are 28 miles of road, formed and unformed in the Borough and £200 divided by the mileage gives a repairing cost at £7 a mile, and with the spare metal (£10) runs up the cost in round figures to £8 a mile. How much should be debited to roads metalled, and how much to roads formed we cannot say, but seeing that nearly one half the roads are metalled and yet the cost is not more than £210 a year shows how absurd it is fo suggest that five more miles of metalled road would unduly entrench on the balance of the year's surplus for new works (£360). By putting two and two together we think the Bnrge?ses will have little trouble in seeing that an expenditure of £3000 could be obtained and five miles more of the Borough roads metalled, not mentioning the money thus left at the disposal of the Council for the minor roads, at a cost, in rates, no greater than they at present bear. The comfort of having good roads in place oi what we have now to put up with, would be worth an extra rate, but when it can be obtained at no further cost, but simply by the display of a little energy, it seems foolish that we should still slumber on.