Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1923. PUBLIC LIBRARY AND READING ROOM.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2644, 11 October 1923, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1923. PUBLIC LIBRARY AND READING ROOM.

WHEN the Mayor, at the-Council meeting, said that a public readingroom and library lor Foxlon was a luxury, he could not have meant that such an institution was nonessential. lie probably desired (o avoid any increase in rates. Further, he said that some people did not know the meaning of sacrifice — they wanted everything. There is a happy medium between parsimony and extravagance and in connection with the provision for a public read-ing-room and library for the town there is no necessity for either extreme. That a public reading-room and library is an essential *in any community needs no elaboration. To be without one is a reflection upon the community. It’s importance is such that sacrifice —if such it could be called —on the part of the community is well merited and justified. Indeed, there is not a borough <*r township throughout the length and breadth of the Dominion which does not possess such an institution. When the lojm proposals for the erection of Council Chambers, to include a public reading-room and Ibr.-py, was put before the ratepayers some years ago it was carried by practically the unanimous vote, of the ratepayers and when that fmilding was destroyed by lire and the insurance money used for the erection of a Council Chamber, to the exclusion of a reading-room and library, the Mayor and those Councillors who supported it, committed not. only an injustice to the ratepayers who sanctioned the. loan, but a grave moral wrong. Cr. Coley strongly advocated a loan to supplement the insurance money for the erection of a. new building to include a public library and reading-room, but his proposals were turned down by the Council on two oreasions. Y\ e do not, however, believe that he will allow his disappointment to prejudice his support in a good cause. Cr. Smith has taken the matter up in the Council and although his proposal to have a loan proposal for a public library taken simultaneously with the baths proposal was defeated by the Council, lie assures us that the matter will not rest there. In his endeavour to allow the ratepayers to settle this question he will receive the backing of the community.