THE CITY LOAN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 146, 19 June 1908, Page 6

THE CITY LOAN.

ORIGINAL- PROPOSALS- AGREED TO. TOTAL OF £130,000. The loan proposals recently brought forward by the City Council led to considerable discussion at last night's meeting. The following recommendations •were made by a committee of the whole Council:— Two new reservoirs at Arch Hill and Khyber Pass 40,030 Improvements Customs-street West 15,000 Widening Upper Symonds-street - - 4,000 Widening High-street 5.000 sew ilorjrae (city's allocation only) 1.033 Parks Improvements 3,000 I Streets improvements 22,00-3 I Town Hall (additional) 30.000 Total £120,000 j His Worship the Mayor said that ! the stun of £22,000 was proposed to be ] (borrowed for street improvements, and j he moved that this be increased by i £10,000, bringing the total to £130,000.! i£ 32,000 was the original sum suggested j by the committee, but it -Bras reduced, j Personally, he thought it a mistake to reduce the amount, and considered that [ no one could question the advisability I of expending £32,000 on our roads, in addition to the £ 45,000 which had ] been allocated in the usual way. The money would not be spent in one year, j but there were urgent works which r»- j quired attention. It had been asked j whether the City could afford it? He ! said that the City could. Their finances iwere in a very satisfactory state. Mr. Court seconded, and remarked j £hat if his Worship had said £50,000 j he would have seconded it willingly, j Justice had not been done to the i streets, and many of them were a posi- I tive to the City of Auckland. | It was impossible to wing the streets ! into anything like condition on tiie rev- j enue. j Mr. Farrell supported the proposal. j Mr. Tudehope objected on the grounds that this was the thin end of the wedge I

of a tremendous borrowing for street

improvements which ought not to be. £20,000 extra was being spent now, to what was expended seven or eight years ago. ■Mr. Parr had most serious misgivings on these loan proposals, and it seemed to him that to borrow large sums for the formation of footpaths and streets was not right The street expenditure today of £45,000 ought to be quite sufficient to maintain the streets, and make new ones from time to time. The exenditure cti streets ha 4 gone up by leaps and bounds. Then with regard to the new reservoirs, upon whose report did they propose to "expend £40.000? Mr. Bagnall supported the proposal, and remarked that Councillors did not seem to remember that while there had been a large increase in the expenditure, there had also been a great increase in the amount of traffic. He referred also 4o the success which had attended the system of wood-blocking in use in Wellington. Councillor Casey said that ha would certainly oppose the increase.

Councillor Entrican alleged that there had been far too much _r*»ne? spent on streets in Ponsonby, particularly in St. Marys-road. He "would vote that the should stand as it had come ir*irfl the ecrrnrnittee. Councillor Patterson believed that the new wort had cost too much. No one conld-say what the streets had cost, simply because the men had drifted from one job to another. Future work should be done by tender. Cr. Hutchison, replying to the assertion that too much had been spent on the streets in Ponsonby, said there were streets there which had not been touched for forty years. I The Mayor said that he would freely admit that there were a lot of "engineers" in the community who were Sl-

ways prepared to give gratuitous advice, especially in regard to engineering matters. But it was not encouraging for the City Engineer to hear councillors express themselves as "they had done. If councillors held such views it was clearly their duty to table some motion. It was not edifying, nor was it fair to the engineer. They had said that the cost of some streets was unknown. He would retort that the state of affairs in the engineer's department had never been so satisfactory. When the present engineer took control matters were not in aC,creditable state, and the engineer - had been kept very busy ever since he commenced. Regarding the reflection on the.jcontract system, the question had been - fought out from time to time, and for various reasons they had deter--4 mined to do work by day labour. "Wrong, sir; absolutely wrong," interjected a councillor in reference to the system. The Mayor: You prove it to the Works Committee. "We have done that, sir." The Mayor: No. Cr. Parr: They are abandoning it (contract system) in other cities. Continuing, the Mayor said that ! £ 27,500 was the amount proposed to "be spent in maintenance during the coming year, not £45,000. £15,000 was allocated to the new works, which consisted of forty-two items. He had seen | the list prepared by the engineer, and j it was quite apparent that the £ 32,000 could be spent to great advantage. It had been urged that the work should be left for future years. That had been the policy in the past. The city was progressing rapidly, valuations were increasing A Councillor: They might go down! The Mayor replied optimistically. He saw no evidence of the suggestion being Teaiised. The prosecution of other works should not interfere with the street improvements. It was quite a reasonable proposal that the Council should borrow this money, and only ask the present generation to pay the sinking fund and interest for the purpose of new works.

Cr. Tudehope asked for the list of proposed works. The engineer gave them as follows: — ißowen-avenue, Brook-square, Emily--rlstreet, Eden-street, Gordon-terrace, Greyi street, Hamilton-road, Hepburn-street. ' James-street, Jermyn-street, John-street, Oliphant-street, Lawrence-street, Parlia-ment-street, Richmond-road, Turnerstreet, Waterloo Quadrant, and Woodfitreet. Replying to the allegation of the excessive cost of the work to St. Mary'sxoad, the Engineer stated that the length done was 1700 feet at a width of 66 feet, which gave a;total.area of 12,500 square yards. The cost of thi3 was £2500 — roughly, two shiHinga a square yard. He was satisfied that investigation would prove his policy a wise one. The amendment was then carried by X—me votes to five, and the loan proposals, £130,000, were then passes'-- .