Pukekohe's Proposed Loans.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 131, 12 January 1916, Page 2

Pukekohe's Proposed Loans.

; TO THE EDITOE. ] Sir,—The arguments adduced in your leading columns in your issue ot yesterday's data in favour of the ratepayers according support to the loane contemplated by the Pukekohe Borough Council were hardly convincing and to my mind were somewhat Jar-fetched. If your contention, viz., that the Council should be given credit t r ability to do their best tor the public ai.d consequently that tf.e principle of their loan proposals should b<: taken on trust without actual minor and eveo major details being furnished were carried to a logical conclusion, surely the legislature would not have decreed that a poll was necessary before a loan was raised. Rather, absolute power ot administration would have been given Councils and confidence would have been reposed in them by Act of Parliament to have carried out what seemed to them best. In my opinion a poll of ratepayers was enforced for the express purpose of curbing the ever existing tendency of local legi:latorß to spend the people's money recklessly and perhaps foolishly. Further, that it is the official opinion that local authorities are spendthrit a is evidenced by the decision of the Government that during the time of the war no loan can be raised without the sanction of ths Governor. 1 have yet to learn that this sanction has been obtained. Such has not been reported in your columns, and therefore the Council have apparently put the cart before the horse and have incurred all the expens: of taking a loan poll trusting that the loans would, it cariied at the poll, be subsequently approved of by the Governor, h this a proper business method? The answer is certainly "No," and yet we are asked to blindly trust the Council. Now in regard to some of the loan schemes. Can we place implicit confidence in the Council when we find that the eoakage into the well at the power-house was no new thing, but had been going on for a long time, and yet its efl'tct was not discovered until an aoalytis of the water was forced on the Council from an outside sou'ee? Again, although it is true the perbonality of the Council has Bomewhat changed in the meantime, one cannot forget "the bogey" sprurg on the ratepayers on the eve of the loan poll of last year, that it the mode of water supply was not altered Pukekohe would go "dry" the following day. The actual facts are that despite all the criticism directed at it the water Bupply continues and should certainly not be intcferied with until some competent and reliable engineering expert reports adversely on the position and recommends improvements. Tinkering bv amateurs should not be permitted by the rate payers. As to drainage, one is bound to admit that this is a very necessary and desirable provision for the good of the health of the town, but the Council have refrained trom supplying information as to the route the sewers are to follow. Are they to be laid in the main streets :>r is private property to be commandeered at the Council's own Bweet will 7 Apart, huwever, from other considerations surely the proper course for the Council to pursue at the present time is to do the best they can to the uttermost extent of their resources and to leave new schemes till the war clouds lift and brighter days dawn.—Yours,- etc., A I'AYBR OK KATES. Pukekohe, January 11th. —♦-