The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 1888. The Town Lands Trust Report.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2872, 13 April 1888, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 1888. The Town Lands Trust Report.

In our lust issue, we published the report and balance-sheet of tlio Masterton Town Lands Trust for the past year, and the public have to thank the Trustees for placing before tliem, prior to the annual meeting, a full statement of their position. If tonight any question appertaining to affairs of the Trust cannot be fully and fairly discussed, the fault does not lie with the Trustees, who have thus taken the people of this district into their confidence. The report will, no doubt, he received with somewhat mixed feelings, for, while it contains matters upon which the Trustees may honestly be congratulated, it also reveals points, against which hostile criticism may easily he levied, For example, the Trustees rpfei* to their new Bill in ambiguous terms as a "Consolidation Bill." They must know that in the ordinary acceptance of the term it is not a Consolidation Bill, but a measure which changes the original scope and intention of the Trust. Another point to which we might take exception is that the Trustees might have expended, a larger proportion of their income on works of utility. They have in the past year given about a hundred pounds to primary schools, a portion of which sum was spent, we regret to say, on Jjuns. Tliey also expended about fifty pounds on the public Library, and nearly as much on the public Park. This was all very well as far as it went, but the Tpstpes could very well have afforded to give auotiiej.' fifty pounds for the encouragement of secondary education, instead of putting money into that old stocking known as a reserve fund. We do not exactly see why a property trust of this kind needs a reservo fund. This, however, is a subject upon which there is likely to be a division of opinion. There are, howoyer, some points upon which the Trustees ujay be heartily felicitated. They have secured'for tho public an additional ten acres'of land adjacent to the Park, and this gain, though of sipa}! in)m£tljat,e importance, will some diy b.e appreciated as a. decided booi), The Trustee?' .deserve the cordial thanks of the public for tlieii* success in adding this patch to the public estate. We have differed with the Trustees on many, points, but there can be no question that they have endeavored to serve the public interests faithfully, and that'if they

have been a little too conservative in their administration, they have, on the whole, enhanced the value of the public estate of which they are . the guardians,