LOANS AND THE RATEPAYERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 223, 20 September 1935, Page 6

LOANS AND THE RATEPAYERS.

The Labour Party, which won a decisive majority on the City Council in May, is now proceeding to give effect to an important part of its election policy, a municipal housing scheme. The first instalment of this scheme will require a loan of £200,000, the raising of which must be sanctioned first by the Local Government Loans Board. Ordinarily, when a loan proposal has been sanctioned by the Loans Board it is then submitted to the ratepayers for approval (and the common experience has been that only a minority of the ratepayers trouble to east their votes). But in special cases a local body having secured the sanction of the Loans Board, may proceed to raise the loan without submitting the proposal to the ratepayers. Is a proposal to erect workers' dwellings a special case? The legal point appears to be arguable, but the Council, even if the point should be decided in its favour, would be unwise to rely on it. This proposal should be placed before the ratepayers. The new Council has most of its term of three years ahead of it, and it rightly hopes that at the end it will be able to look back on a record of solid achievement. Such a hope is vain if, at the beginning, the Council adds £200,000 to the total of the city's indebtedness without consulting the ratepayers. The resentment that such an action would incur might conceivably result later in the rejection by the ratepayers of proposals essential to the city's welfare. No doubt the Labour members on the Council, who so far have created a favourable impression by their zealous devotion to the city's affairs, are anxious to have something concrete to show as the fruit of their work, but in the step they now propose they are letting zeal outrun discretion. The Government considers that housing is impoi'tant, and a city survey is proposed. Could the Auckland City Council not wait until the survey has been made ? So far the Labour Party has offered singularly incomplete data in justification of its scheme. If the scheme is sound there should be no difficulty in providing this information, but the policy of denying the ratepayers a voice lays councillors «pea to the charge that they cflerr ability to convince.