OLD LIABILITY.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 June 1922, Page 7

OLD LIABILITY.

POSITION OF COUNTY COUNCILS. THE GOVERNMENT’S ATTITUDE. The Prime Minister wrote to the Clifton County Council yesterday in reply to the council’s request that the Government should apportion part of the loan recently raised on the London market for the payment of local bodies’ antecedent liabilities. The Premier said it had been decided that it was impossible for the Government to arrange for the repayment of the total liabilities of local bodies by means of State-raised loans. As a matter of fact, the Minister stated, the £’5,000,000 recently raised had wholly been allotted for specific purposes, and would, in any case, be far from sufficient to meet the liabilities of local bodies in this respect. The State Advances Office notified that it could not advance the loan of £4336 6s lid asked for by the council to extinguish the antecedent liability. The office stated that this was not one of the purposes for which the department was authorised to lend money. Or. Foreman said it appeared that the only course left open to them was to pay off the liability by annual instalment. ‘ The chairman said this would mean an extra rate of about |d. If the money could be raised from the bank he thought it would not be necessary to strike any extra rate. If they got the money from the bank in debentures they should be able to meet it out of revenue. A joint counties’ loan was considered the best way to extinguish antecedent liabilities,’ but the opinion was expressed that there was not sufficient time at their disposal to adopt this course, and the only way left open was to accept the bank’s offer. It was finally decided to approach the bank with a view to arranging for the raising of £4OOO on debentures for 10 years at a reasonable rate of in-