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Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXVI, Issue 9604, 23 December 1891, Page 4

Oamaeu is apparently determined to achieve an unenviable notoriety. The repudiation of its responsibilities by the Harbour Board has infected the Borough Council. At anyrate such is the statement circulated by the Oamaru Mail in a recent issue. The report is so astounding that we are bound to receive it with some hesitation. Still the rumour is given with an amount of circumstantiality which puts it beyond the region of the humorous, and we accept it as founded upon fact. Our contemporary states that the Council has reduced its cost of administration to a point which leaves no room for further reductions; that it has " boldly faced the inevitable default,” and has “ determined to go to the bondholders with an offer of 4 per cent interest.” Considering that the two Oamaru municipal loans bear interest at 7 per cent, the total amount being ,£IIO,OOO, the reduction (not proposed, but determined upon) is sufficiently large even to satisfy the demands of a South American mob. From the journal quoted, we gather that “4 per cent is not the limit of the Council’s ability to pay, and it has not been determined upon as the result ot any estimate of the borough revenue and expenditure, but is based upon the receipts from the securities pledged to the bondholders.” This, therefore, ia not the repudiation which springs from necessity, but a repudiation arising from a lack 01 desire to meet engagements freely entered into. A more disgraceful, a more shameless act of dishonesty we have never yet seen nor heard of on the part of any British community. Facilis descensus Averni. From repudiations of the Harbour Board obligations the Oamaru people are apparently about to descend to repudiation of nearly half the rate of interest agreed upon for their municipal loans. What further step they can take downward in the path of financial degradation remains to be seen. This matter has a Colonial interest. The action of Oamaru introduces an element of risk into Colonial borrowing for local purposes for which the public will be called upon to pay. It must also damage the fair name of the Colony. We protest against it, and trust the Government will, in the interests of the Colony generally, lake steps to show the Oamaru people that laches of this kind are not to be lightly regarded, and that communities as well as individuals must respect those laws of honest dealing which hold society together, and upon which civilisation ia built.