To the Western Suburbs

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 196, 16 May 1936, Page 8

To the Western Suburbs

Sir, —Reading some back tiles on. the | Bowen Street tramway route to find out | the origin of the statement of the £70,000, it appears that the Mayor said that because they had spent £70,000 on the scheme the ratepayers should vote the rest of the money to complete the job so as to get the full value of the money already spent. The council in its present arguments for its ease now regrets this line of reasoning, because it states that it only spent £23,110/4/4, which included an unemployment subsidy of some £OOOO. Naturally one is puzzled as to what happened to the £40,000. The fact is that £40,000 was absorbed in the. layout of Quinton’s Corner, which obviously had to be done in order Io get a good tramway approach into Bowen Street. 'The War -Memorial camouflaged the whole affair, ami as it improved the appearance of the telling of I’arliament this probably explains why . Mr. Coates also assisted with finance—some £16,000, I believe, if my memory is correct. It would be interesting to hear bow the various accounts were shuffled round to produce the money required for this £70,000. The combination of the electric light department and the tramways department seems to be something of a conjurer's outfit. Recently we learnt that the tramways barely paid, and I believe that legislation was obtained to stop payments into the various sinking funds, yet some magician produces £27,000 to complete the Bowen Street route. Probably by the same methods they hope the Government will produce £40,000 toward the cost of the proposed deviation through the backyards of Sydney Street an,l behind the old museum. Let us hope that the city councillors have seen in the newspapers recently that the Wellington ratepayers arc emphatically for the Norway Street route, and that they can inform their ofliehls of the fact that the representatives of the people have so spoken because one believes that they profess ithey don’t know anything about it. Probably they remember the results of the previous poll on Bowen Street, and .vet one doubts it, because they are still advocating it again in spite of the fact that Parliament turned down the Bowen Street route a year or so ago. Perhaps the fact that Parliament inserted a clause into the City Council’s Rongotai Aerodrome Bill providing for a poll of (he ratepayers before the council could raise £150,000 will remind them that Parliament will demand a poll of the ratepayers before they spend £27,000 on Bowen Street. The council has already spent about £70.000, and to complete the scheme will cost another £30,000, amt may cost, the Government still another £40,000. Altogether, £140.000 to save live minutes and £2OOO annually in overhead expenses, which is all guesswork, as much duplication of the tracks to Karort has been done recently.—l am. etc.. PLAIN I'ACTS.