The Manawatu Herald Saturday, February 25, 1911. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 959, 25 February 1911, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald Saturday, February 25, 1911. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

It is notified elswhere in this issue that the poll on the proposal to borrow /2800 for the erection of a Municipal Hall will be taken on Wednesday, March 15. So far as we have been able to .ascertain, very little opposition has been shown to the proposal. Those who have spoken against the loan have done so either on personal grounds or because they are against any forward movement. We have been informed by one ratepayer that he was approached to make one of a syndicate to build a hall, and was informed that it would be a payable spec. His reply was that it a hall would pay private enterprise it would also pay the ratepayers, and he favoured the people owning their own house of amusement for self-evident reasons. In our opinion all public places of amusement should be under popular control, and we should be sorry to see the local hall erected by private enterprise. It would be a retrograde step. The fear that a hall, if erected, would be a burden on the rates, is fast disappearing in view of recent overtures made to the Council by companies who are anxious to lease the hall on either one or two nights per week throughout the year. With an assured revenue, ratepayers should have no fear from a financial point of view in supporting the proposal.