LOAN PROPOSALS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 31, 6 February 1935, Page 10

LOAN PROPOSALS

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—l read with particular care the last statement of the Ratepayer's' Association which appeared in the "Evening Post" on Saturday last.. It had been previously reported that this association objected to fourteen items' in the loan proposals, but the correspondent who sent the letter to the" Loans Board has thrown . discretion" to the !winds and is opposing the whole proposal. As a suburban resident, I take strong exception to the interference of central city interests in the work of | the entire city.

The loan proposals which" are1 now the subject of discussion are made necessary by the adyent-of the Ratepayers' Association in civic affairs. The Ratepayers' Association; .candidates, and councillors, reduced the wages or the employees and further, then dismissed from the service of the council more than 300 workers, the result being that the work in the'suburbs was stopped. Practically nothing has been done in the suburbs from, 1930 until the commencement of 1933.'. I am sure had.it not been for the advent of additional Labour representation on the council that no work of any consequence would have been performed in the suburbs. The majority 'of the works to-be performed from the loan proposals are works of urgent necessity, which the shortsighted policy "of the Ratepayers' Association brought'to a halt, and in my opinion the loan proposal is the only method of making up the leeway. The works "are .most urgent and of such a nature that they must be completed within a given period, otherwise the maintenance costs of partly-completed works i would cost more in the long run. Under such circumstances it is better economics to raise a loan now when money is cheap and plenty of labourers available than to increase the rates and do the work piecemeal from revenue. The suburban residents should be now aware where the Ratepayers' Association stands. The central city inter-: ests have been well catered for. and the expense has been born by the suburban residents, and now when the lime has arrived for some progressive work to be done in the localities where the bulk of the people live, the Ratepayers' Association shows its hand' and cries .""We protest!"—l am,.etc.,>;y-j ; y SUBURBANITE-