MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS— A FATLURE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 132, 18 August 1870, Page 6

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS— A FATLURE.

(To tlie Editor of the Tuapeka Times.) Sir, — Amongst the many intended improvements that have taken place in Otago within the last few years, I would ask you, and the public, if k they are satisfied with the results, or- do you and they consider any of them failures. I would specially call your attention to one, that, is- our. corporations, which bodies, I presume, were apppinted in order that our- townships would be put and kept in good passable condition, and that that body of rulers would give to the inhabitants in each respective incorported township good value for their taxes, neither wasting the money themselves, nor allowing collectors to embezzle it. I make no allowance for the honour of having a Mayor and a number of honourable Councillors, preferring at all times gopd roads to unmerited honpur. Are you and the rate payers oi Lawrence, after four years expeiience, satisfied with, the value you have got for your, money from that eorporated body? If you are, I am not ; and unless, a very, great improvement takes place this year in Lawrence, the sooner the corpprated seal is broken the better, and I would propose that road boards, free from destruction, be substituted in their place. This, I propose, because our only want is good roads, and not empty titles. It may here bo asked what a road board would do for us. This I will endeavour to show. Give such a board the present income^'of the corporation, and I think I am^not !'far out in putting that income down at^£looo per annum. The board would then engage a good surface man at £80 per annum, whose dn f v would be to attend to the streets after they were made, for it is of little use saving onions unless attention is paid to them afterwards. This surface man might also apt as Inspector of Nuisances, and during, summer he could <.put in culverts where necessary, and clean the streets. The board could form footpaths, &c. ; s3so have a good secretary at £50, and

allowing £15 for assessor, and £30 for collecting tlie rates, would leave in their hands the sum of £825. Now, this revenue might be expended as follows :— The board could allow £125 for the carting of stones and timber for culverts and crossings (the labour being done by the surface man) ; and by allowing £50 for incidental expenses, the sum of £650 would remain, which could be profitably laid out on broken metal or good screened gravel. That sum of money would give 2889 yards at 4s 6d per square yard, which would be sufficient to lay 2j- miles of our streets, eight inches in depth by ten feet wide, and in three years at this rate the town of Lawrence wotuld not only be in possession of good streets, but by that period would be enabled to reduce the rate to 3d in the pound, and have a sinking fund besides. — I am, «fee, Reformation. Lawrence, Aug. 8, 1870.