Untitled

Taranaki Daily News, 30 July 1919, Page 4

SOME MISAPPREHENSIONS. Some rather wild statements were made at the meeting of the Okato Dairy Company on Monday relative to the proposals of the Taranaki County Council to raise the wind. One speaker said the settlers should not support the proposed loan for road improvement unless revenue to help to pay the interest was available from outside sources. The chairman of the meeting very properly pointed out that this would be cutting off their noses to spite their faces, as it cost £3OO per mile to maintain the road, -whereas, after it was tar-sealed it could be maintained for £l2O per mile, which would allow more money for the by-roads. The Ionn« to be raised in the Omata and Okato Ridings amount ,to £21,400. At 5% per cent, interest and 1 J-per cent, sinking fund (extinguishing the loan in the short period of 20 years) the annual charges will be £1444. There are approximately nineteen miles of main road. The maintenance charges (at £l2O a mile) will, therefore, be £2280. Add Interest, etc., £1444, and the total annual cost is £3724, or £lO6 a mile, a clear saving to .the ratepayers of £lO4 a mile per year, or a total saving per year of £1970. Verily, any ratepayer would be cutting off his nose to spite his face if lie did not support the loan. It is a great pity the value of the tar-sealed road was not recognised by the county years ago and a big loan gone in for. The saving in maintenance would have gone a long way towards paying the whole of the capital cost. Failure to do so has largely brought about the present position, which, however, is not as desperate as would justify the County Council going on with the iniquitous and invidious wheel tax. Ratepayers in the Omata and Okato Ridings are getting a substantial measure of relief from hie Puniho toll-gate, which is netting £I3OO per year, and increasing every year. This revenue in itself would provide more than a third of the total annual ("barges in connection with the proposed loan for this particular district. It will thus bo seen that ratepayers in these districts, far from being unduly pressed by reason of the loan, will actually be substantially relieved. Then the byroads will be given the attention which, undoubtedly, .the? deserve, and which they could have received had the main road been tar-sealed years ago.