LEAVING IT TO THE RATEPAYERS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12965, 19 November 1907, Page 6

LEAVING IT TO THE RATEPAYERS.

The City Council last night adopted tho recommendation of the Finance Committoo that tho offer of the Bank of Now Zealand to sell for £'15,000 a strip of land for widening Colombo street be submitted to a poll of tho ratepayers. Tho requisite means will, of course, ho taken to bring tho matter before the public. We have nothing to add to our previous advocacy of a step that we aro convinced will bo for tho benefit of tho city. Wo ask thoso who are opposed to tho purchase to remember that whatever is done will affect for good or ill not merely the Christchurch of today, but to a much larger extent tho greater Christchurch of fifty years hence. As a community we owe much to the far-sighted action of those who administered our public affairs in tho early days. Farks, gardens, wide streets, aud pleasant open spaces attest their recognition of the future needs of the infant city, at a time when it almost required the prophet' 6 eye to discern them. Hagley Park was of lit-tl© or no use to tho pioneers who set it aside for public recreation, and there must hay© been somo who grudged devoting so much saleable, land to the benefit of posterity. Th© widening of the Bank corner is, as we think, a work of necessity now, it would bo much more co a generation hence, and if it is not done now whan the land can be bought at a reasonable prioe, at som© future day it may havo to bo done at far greater oost. A Councillor last night, who is opposed to the purchase, remarked that the matter was "perfectly safe i» th© " hands of the ratepayers." In a different sense than he implied, wo trust he was right, and that the Christchurch peopl© of. to-day will prove not less far-seeing than thoso of tho fifties, to whom they a/re indebted for many of the , features that make modern Christchurch so fair and pleasant.