Manawaiu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1886. CONTEMPORARY OPINION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XII, Issue 1741, 23 June 1886, Page 2

Manawaiu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1886. CONTEMPORARY OPINION.

The Marton paper, like ourselves, does not greatly approve of some of the provisions of Sir Julius Vogel's Local Bodies Loan Bill. With reference to the clause which reads : — " To pay off overdrafts, or to consolidate loans already raised on the security of special rates, loans may be raised without taking a poll of the. taxpayers." Our Marton contemporary observes : — This provision, though it might sometimes be very convenient, is, we think, dangerous m the highest degree. We have no fear of the local bodies m our own district abusing it ; for they have always been very careful. There are local bodies m other parts of the colony, however — on the West Coast of the South Island, for example — that will have no hesitation about abusing; it m a most flagrant manner, and then coming to Parliament for relief. The Bill specially provides that the colony is not liabie, but the provision is not worth a dump. Political pressure would be brought to bear, and moreover the colony would be seriously injured m the financial market if. any of its local bodies made default, and the colony would have to come to rescue, to save its own credit. No loan should be raised without the sanction of the ratepayers. \ A temporary overdraft i> quite a different matter ; it is rajsed from a

thoroughly conversant with the resources of the local body and never run any serious risk. The Marton paper further remarks : — The provision enabling local bodies to borrow for school buildings is also a vicious one. The cost of public education is already more than the resources ot the colony warrant. Instead of increasing it, the people should go m for curtailing it, and thus stimulating private effort. There is another provision to which we strongly object — namely, that sanctioning payment of the first [year's interest out of loan. The colony has already had bitter experience of this kind of thing. The principle is economically rotten to the core. Sir J. ! Yogel evidently wants the local bodies to take a leaf out of his own book. Where the ratepayers of any district do not exceed a hundred, the local body may.Jevy h special rate without taking a poll. This is as bad as it could be. Surely the ratepayers of small districts require to be protected even more than those of large districts. They are weak, and are therefore all the more entitled to every safeguard from being fleeced.

The •' Small Birds Nuisance, Act 1882, Extension Bill," which passed its second reading on Thursday, makes it lawful for the Council oi any country or the Board of any road district to lay poisoned grain or Beeds for the destruction of small birds upon any public roads within its jurisdiction, and with the consent of the owners ot adjoining land*, upon any private roads within the county or road district respectively. The proviso is added that before lading poison on any road notice shall bo given by public advertisement for at least two weeks, arid not less than once m each week, of the intention to lay poison. Clause 6 of the Act of 1882 is proposed to be repealed, and which provided that no poison shall be laid within two hundred and twenty yards of an inhabited house.