CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 210, 14 December 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

THE BOROUGH LOAN PROPOSALS. The Borough Council, at its meeting on Monday evening, decided to go to the ratepayers for authority to borrow £ll^26 — £5623 for street works, and £5602 for sewerage extension. The issues, we are glad to notice, are to be separately shown on the ballot paper, and not lumped together. .This is as it should be, for ratepayers should .be given the opportunity of expressing their views on either proposal on its own merits. The two proposals are fundamentally different. One is reproductive; the other is not. In borrowing for reproductive purposes, the borough cannot very well go wrong; if for non-reproductive works it may, unless great care is exercised, easily overburden itself. Therefore when proposals for increasing the borough's debt (and consequently the annual cost of adiminisitrationi) are submitted, ratepayers should give them the fullest consideration. It is not suggested .that only proposals that are directly profit-earn-ing should be approved. Frequently the welfare of a borough demands the expenditure of money on works that are not remunerative of themselves. We have instances of this in the* case of the Powderham and Gill street bridges, both very necessary works, which are of much benefit and convenience to the town, though they wall increase the annual cost of working the borough by approximately £3OO. The proposed sewerage extension ■work is not only necessary in the interests of the health of the community, but,, like the sewerage scheme as a whole, will prove remunerative, and therefore must be accounted a good investment for/-the borough. .The proposed street work is in an altogether different category. The Mayor's original scheme, it will be remembered, was to borrow £3OOO by way of bank overdraft for this purpose, but, at' the instance of the Council, it was decided to bring down a comprehensive scheme, the present proposals being the result, the Council quite properly deciding to consult the l ratepayers beforehand, instead of obtaining the money on what may have been disadvantageous terms from the bank, without reference to the ratepayers, who would be called upon to shoulder the liability. We have no objection bo the works being carried out—but not out of loan money. Considering the extent of our debt—it now amounts to the tidy sum of £l3l,soß—we should regard it as a duty not to further increase it unless we "have strong and sufficient reasons for so doing. We do not think these reasons exist in the present case. The works are not urgently required, and neglect to go on with them at once would not entail much loss or inconvenience. As we have said before, these works could very well be undertaken from time to time out- of ordinary revenue. It is better, in our opinion, to move slowly in a matter of thi3 kind than too quickly. It will be said at once that it is' impossible to attempt any of these works out of ordinary revenue, as there is insufficient money now to meet ordinary requirements. We are aware of this, but we do not regard the conditions of things as inevitable. So long as we muddle along, without any definite plan of operations and concertedness of purpose, as we have been doing, we never will have any money to spare; on the contrary, we will be lucky if we escape the imposition of a higher rate. There is plenty of evidence of this muddling, if the ratepayer will but look around him. On frequent occasions in the past w.e have drawn attention to it. When it disappears, when better value is obtained for the money spent, when the Council sits tight for a while, and puts its outside works on a systematic basis, there will be no necessity for going to the ratepayers for works such as appear in the present schedule.

PROVE IT! It may have struck people who have attended the various Taranaki" shows and displays lately that the best exhibits remained outside. The person who dabbles in horses is often convinced that if lie had entered his hack or draught or thoroughbred he could have scooped the board. lie snorts derision at the display. "That a cabbage?" exclaimed a man the other day; "y'orter see the one I got at home," and so on. If you come to think of it, that sort of person doesn't help. If all the prize cows and cabbages, horses and scones were kept at home, shows couldn't happen, and people would be deprived of the privilege of meeting in mutual admiration the produce of the province and of each other. It reminds one of the average small boy who loudly mentions he. will "bet yer a thousand pounds" he can jump farther than the other boy, whose obvious retort is to "put down yer money." It is also related to the half-truth or innuendo, which is whispered to the damage of folk, hut would fall to pieces before a magistrate or a judge. If you've got a better cabbage or a finer rose or a more wonderful pumpkin than anybody else in Taranaki, in the words of the small boy, "prove it." You don't need to expectorate over your bent arm, or to make n motion with a wet finsrer across your throat, or to draw a line in the dust with the toe of your boot. Just prove it.' -Perhaps vague generalisations don't hurt anybody, and if we went around proving everything there would be little U'S-e for lawyers, and life would be a frightful bore. But to revert to the boastful cabbage rearer or the superb horse grower, or the superlative pumpkin expert, who H-fso vociferous in his belief that he possesses the "lirsfc prize" exhibit he won't show, we hope he-