Feilding Star. TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 1884. The Borough Roads

Feilding Star, Volume V, Issue 26, 4 March 1884, Page 2

Feilding Star. TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 1884. The Borough Roads

At the last meeting of the Borough Council, Councillor Loudon gave notice that he would bring forward a motion on the subject of improvements to Manchester street, more especially as regards re-metalling it. As this will come up, consequently, for discussion at the meeting of the Borough Council on Thursday evening next, we would impress on every Councillor the necessity which exists for his attendance, and for him to take more than merely a passive share in the debate which must issue. We are firmly persuaded of the necessity of the work to be done, and the precedence which Manchester street ought to take, seeing it is what may be called the main street in the Boi-ough, but at the same time we fully recognise the claims of other parts of the Borough for work to be done in the way of road making and repairing. The question as to what roads shall be made has already been decided by the vote of the electors on the schedule of public works attached to the loan proposals. The only part of the business which remains now in the hands of the Borough Council is the order as to time in which the said works Bhall be completed. Some ratepayers must necessarily be disappointed, and the mud and quagmires which they have had to interfere with the comfortable ingress and egress to and from their homes will have to be endured for another winter. Councillors will sympathise with these, no doubt, and well-meant efforts will be made to remove the evils which have existed so long. They must, however, remember that the means to do so are somewhat limited. Not as regards money happily, but as regards men. We have not a single idle laboring man in the place who is fitted for this particular class of labor. If ordinary delay is allowed for tho completion of the harvest, and of contracts now in hand, a number of men will gradually bo released, and their labor will be available for new works. As wo have before stated we are strongly in favor of the whole of the public works of the Borough being done, as far as is practicable, by men who are ratepayers, or at least permanent residents. We are certain that rushing a lot of new contracts into the labor market would only have the effect of inviting outside competition, from which, in our particular case, no benefit can accrue. We have every confidence in the discretion of the Counoil, and believe that no work will be authorised which is not of the first importance, and likely to be most beneficial to the burgesses as a whole. For ourselves we think that the Council will do well to support Councillor Loudon and pass his resolution, the necessity for which is so apparent, but in this and all Bimilar cases we would have tho subject fully discussed and only agreed to on itb merits.