THE STATE GUARANTEE FUND.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 773, 23 March 1910, Page 5

THE STATE GUARANTEE FUND.

• ♦ KARORI COUNCIL PUZZLED. At a meeting of the Karori Borough Council last evening, a telegram was read from Mr. J. W. Poynton, superintendent of the New Zealand Guarantee State Advances Board, stating that the application of the council for a loan of £27,500 had been refused. ■■ The Mayor said that for the last three months the Department had stated that it was simply a question of the securities being in order, and the filling in. of the forms. Moreover, from inquiries he had made, 'he had heard that applications from all parts of the Dominion for money for tramways, gasworks, and electric light services, had been rejected. Preference was to be given to reading backblacks, roads and bridges, water, and drainage. The Prime Minister had stated in Auckland that the Department had £750,000 in hand, and no doubt there were a large number of applications for loans. If applications for money for the works which he had enumerated had to wait till all applications for roads arid bridges had been dealt with, then he thought it was high time that they applied in some other quarter, as they would have to wait for years. The Karori Borough Council had good assets, and had.only borrowed a little under 11 per. cent, of their values. The

question- for the council now to con-, sider'.'was whether they- should make any further effort to obtain from the Government some, explanation, or should they, apply somewhere else. Councillor Wedde. considered the council shouH apply to some other quarter. . : : :

_Councillor Eaine: "When the Prime Minister came back from England we were told there was plenty of money, and we cannot get any. He has known the end from the beginning." Councillor Eaine, continuing, said that he thought that it would be better if the. matter was pushed . a little. further, and thus let the country, know the position. . The Mayor remarked that the application made by the Karon Council for money was one of the first' lodged.' Other bodies, however, had been treated 'in the same way as , themselves. He thought that they, should go to the .Prime Minister, and find out for themselves what the position really was. If the board were going to treat applications in this manner,' they no farther ahead five years, hence, and, for this reason, they should go to the open market. They had contributed their share of taxation, and it was only right that they should know, why the money was not forthcoming. Personally, he preferred to hear from the Prime Minister himself what the workings of the' board were. The matter then dropped.