AN ARBITRARY RESOLUTION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 812, 15 February 1910, Page 2

AN ARBITRARY RESOLUTION.

At last night's Borough Couucil meeting the Couucil went into committee when discussing the water and drainage schemes and on resumiug carried a resolution to the effect that the loan proposals for water and drainage be put before the ratepayers as one issue, instead of two separate proposals. We regret very much indeed that the Council should not take the ratepayers into their fullest confidence in respect to this important matter. Too much publicity cannot be given to the question of water and drainage and the ratepayers look to their representatives to a great extent for information and guidance. It is therefore the duty of each city father to be well primed on the subject so that he need not fear publicity. A well-informed man on any subject courts publicity. Touching the resolution passed, surely the Council have not entered into a conspiracy to kill the proposals outright, for that’s what may happen if the two proposals are dumped into one. Such a resolution is, in any case, most arbitrary and untenable. It would be perfectly in order if the resolution expressed the opinion of a majority of the ratepayers, but it does not, neither does it represent a majority of the Council, and for three or four councillors to force a poll for a ,£20,000 loan without alternatives on to the ratepayers, without first consulting their wishes is, to put it mildly, immense! Surely that point could have been left to the public meeting to decide. Anyhow, we feel certain that the Mayor will remove the pistol from the collective ratepayers head and allow the proposals for water and drainage to be put separately.