MIRAMAR LOAN PROPOSALS. A Leap in the Dark.

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 254, 13 May 1905, Page 6

MIRAMAR LOAN PROPOSALS. A Leap in the Dark.

SOMEBODY seems to be m a deuce of a hurry with those Miramar loan proposals. The ratepayers' meeting at Seatoun last week, if it showed anvthmg at all, proved up to the hilt the necessity for further deliberation. There is stiong antagonism on the part of a large section of the people to certain features of the scheme submitted to them. The ratepayers of Miramar West don't object to the proposal to municipalise the ferry service, if the details are all right, but they want to be assured that they shall have an electric tram service as well « ♦ * As for the motor 'bus proposal, they won't have it at any price And as the three things— a £20,000 ferry, £10,000 far a tunnel through the Seatoun hill, and £6000 for motor 'busses and some odds and ends — were all lumped together, the ratepayers, by a show of hands, vetoed them m the proportion of nearly two 1 to one Mark the result. The poll fox authority to raise the £36,000 has this week been definitely fixed for Monday next But the proposals are no longer grouped together as one. It is perceived that the motor-car pro* ject is hopelessly flattened out, and so it is severed from the other two so that its fate may not imperil the ferry and tunnel That is to say, Miramar is to be asked to swallow ferry and tunnel m one gulp, and make another mouthful of the motor 'busses, or discard them altogether * * * Not a word about the electric trams upon which the larger portion of the rating area has set its heart What is the'use of a £10,000 tunnel, or any tunnel m fact, unless for trams to use it? It is. not required for the two motor 'busses which the Borough Council wants the burgesses to sanction Their only purpose is to feed the Miramar ferry wharf with passengers — one to ply to Miramar North, where houses have been going up lately, and the other to run to Miramar South, presumably for the benefit of the Chinese gardeners, its sole inhabitants. Then why bracket together the ferry and the tunnel, unless it be that the tunnel is to help the ferry through ? ■*•*■* But if the ratepayers are divided about the proposals submitted to them, the Borough Council is in an even worse plight It is dead against its own scheme At the ratepayers' meeting it was condemned by three out of the five councillors One of them protested, without being gainsaid, that even the ferry scheme had not been properly considered; that the plan of a new steamer to cost £7700, which was exhibited at the meeting, had not even been shown to the Council , and that figures quoted by the mayor had not been placed before the councillors Does Miramar want to buy a pig in a poke ?

What sort of harebrained folly is this, to rush to the ratepayers for authority to raj&e £36,000 when no definite plan of operations is laid down? When, in fact, the Council itself is at hopeless variance upon the objects m view? Why all this desperate haste to take over the ferry service? Is it played out? The Mayor assured the meeting if the present ferry boats were taken over it would be done on business lines, and not as a matter of sentiment. That is all very well so far as it goes, but the Council must first procure the necessary data and agree upon a course of action. The ratepayers, too, have a right to< be taken into its full confidence. * * * It is too large an order to ask the ratepayers to sanction a loan of £36,000 that is to> be squabbled over afterwards There is reason to believe the ferry would pay for itself. Electric trams are an absolute necessity if Miramar is to march forward at an even pace with the rest of the city. Then why not evolve a well-digested scheme for ferry and trams, and let the ratepayers vote upon them, agreeing to both or eliminating either or both as they choose? Equipped with ferry and trams, and reached with equal ease by land and sea, Miramar would have unrivalled advantages over any other suburb of Wellington