Bay of Plenty Times. MONDAY MARCH 4th, 1929. IN TRUST.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LVII, Issue 10016, 4 March 1929, Page 2

Bay of Plenty Times. MONDAY MARCH 4th, 1929. IN TRUST.

Tiio late Sir William Homes, by his will, left to this town the sum of £1000; and directed that his executor was to hold it

“ Upon trust lor the Borough oi iauranga, ' Rut so nevertheless that the said sum shall only be used or applied by the said Corporation on some object or objects calculated to beautify the Borough of Taurauga or increase the amenities thereof it being my desire that the said sum or any income thereof shall not be used by the Corporation in or towards any dbject or objects in the said Borough which are usually provided for out of rates or other revenue of the Corporation or which may have the effect of relieving the ratepayers from any liability in connection with*' works usually undertaken and carried on by the corporation.” Wo see no,. ambiguity about that provision and never did. In the matter of providing public utilities, and carrying on many activities municipalities have very wide powers, and those powers unquestionably embrace I the provision of public parks and the improvement and beautifying of any public area. We never did agree that the work on the Strand came within the scope of the will, or that the donor ever contemplated ythat his munificent gift would be devoted to such a purpose. Quite obviously the time will come when a portion, if not the whole, of the enclosed area must be encroached upon to meet the demands of a growing traffic. At the moment: it is quite apparent ’to the most casual observer that the railway fence needs setting back and a platform erected extending from Harington Street to .Wharf Street with exits at 'both ends, and at Hamilton Street as at present. The present inconvenient and dangerous unloading and loading of passengers from and into the long excursion trains which come here cannot long continue. But that by the way. The park—pond, arch, rockery, fence and grass—are there, and it might be agreed that the money has been well spent—although to the uninitiated it does appear that the work has been costly—but it cannot surely be agreed by even the most indifferent ratepayer that the portion of the gift spent on Devonport Rond lias a shadow of justification. From about the Seventh Avenue to the Tenth, ,on the edge of the eastern bank, a fence has been erected it can reasonably be called a good sheep fence—enclosing an area a Inch at the moment is little more than a sanctuary for practically every variety of noxious weed that grows in the borough, and there are not a few. lo adil insult to injury the bank on the opposite side of the road has recently been cleared of gorse and the cuttings thrown into the ’ enclosed area. The use of a portion of the Herries’ bequest for this work is so obviously a perversion of the donors’ expressed desire that it is difficult to understand how the borough council j lent itself to any suggestion that the j money should be spent, and still more difficult to understand what actuated the Public Trustee in authorising the expenditure. If the gifts of publicspirited men are to be utilised in the manner that has been permitted in Devonport Road, in view of the terms of the will, then it is safe to assert that public benefactions toTaulanga will be few and far between. Is there any citizen who Can argue that the erection of a fence along a roadside and the provision of paths to give easy access to private playing grounds, is a work not “usually provided for out of rates or other revenue, or which may have the effect of relieving the ratepayers from any liability in connection, with works usually undertaken and carried on by the corporation?” Hardly. Then why such scant regard for the desires and intention of one of the most publicspirited men ever associated with the town ?