EFFECT OF CITY LOAN VOTE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 47, 25 February 1937, Page 8

EFFECT OF CITY LOAN VOTE

Citizens of Wellington with any thought for the progress of the city will he disappointed with the result of yesterday's vote by the ratepayers on the loan proposals submitted by the City Council. Only one proposal out of the six was carried. Fortunately this, which provides for alterations and improvements to the sewerage system at a cost of £200,000, Avas the most urgent and important in the schedule. Of the items which failed to secure approval most regret will be'felt for the loss of the proposal to extend the Rongotai aerodrome with a view to making Wellington's airport worthy of the city's position. The consequence will he the loss *ilso of (ho Government's promised £-for-£ subsidy of £70,000, and, unless other means can be found to cam' out the work, the continuance of Wellington's, exclusion from the main avenues of air traffic. What this means to the: future of this city should be obvious enough lo any citizen with an eye (o the development of air transport elsewhere. • Out of 31,000 ratepayers only about 7950—0r a little more than a quarter —exercised their voles. Such apathy bodes ill for democratic institutions, for it might happen, as in 1920, that a similar proportion of the ratepayers in a different mood might, as they did then, vole in favour of a huge loan containing ■many more questionable items than did yesterday's schedule. There- is one further important consideration. Ratepayers who voted out yesterday's proposals in the conviction that they were thereby preventing a rise in their rales may find a majority on the council insistent on some of the works being done out of revenue, with the result that to meet the cost the rates will have to be increased more than they would 'have b,een if the work had been done out of loans. In this way a short-sighted refusal to sanction necessary loans may easily defeat itself.