LOCAL BODIES, LOANS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 70, 23 March 1910, Page 6

LOCAL BODIES , LOANS.

REPLY TO COMPLAINTS. (By Telegraph. Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, this day. Referring to complaints received from some local bodies as to the response made to their applications for loans under _ the State Guaranteed Advances Act, Sir Joseph Ward informed a "Post" reporter that the total amount authorised by the Board at its last meeting ■was £612,000. In no previous period 0° 12 months had the amount authorised exceeded £200.000. Applications submitted to the Board at its last meeting acounted to £1,400455, and the Board— rightly, in his opinion— preference to applications for advances for sewerage, drainage, -water supply, roads, and bridges. To have entertained applications for tramways, electric light, gas loans, and building municipal theatres, Ito the exclusion of more necessary -works, •would not have been right. ' He thought the public generally would recognse that proper preference had been given to the more pressing -works. No board would be justified in letting out the whole of the money available at once. The system had conferred, and would confer a boon on local bodies, but common-sense mast be used and patience exercised. The Board must be careful in discriminating as to which class of works should ceive first consideration. -