The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. MONDAY, MAY 3, 1909. "A PLUMP FOR PROGRESS."

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 106, 3 May 1909, Page 4

The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. MONDAY, MAY 3, 1909. "A PLUMP FOR PROGRESS."

Such is the significant headline which adorns the Napier evening journal's report of the success or recent loan proposals in the sunny town. Napier, a town of 10,000 inhabitants or thereabouts, has just resolved by a vote of its ratepayers to float a loan of £134,250 for various publio. work®. The amount is -a large one, and. at first glance would appear to constitute a very heavy burden upon, the people. The first question that naturally occurs upon considering this rather remarkable outburst of municipal energy is what rate will be necessary to meet the annual charges? The answer is .surprising. It is (that no extra rate is needed for the purpose. "has proposition is worth examining by way of encouragement to timorous souls m this borough j who always shrink from amy proposition to borrow money for municipal purposes. The amount,- as we have ©aid, is £134,250, a sum. intended to cover not only some' necessary works, but also to enable the borough to embark upon, .somei extremely profitable enterprises. Chief of thse are electric trams, lighting and power, from which the most careful calculation1 by experts show a handsome profit will be derived from the start. For this £35,000 is-set down. Then there is a municipal theatre -and Town Hall, for which £25,000 is meeded, (the ■estimates again showing handsome re.tur.nis upon the outlay. Duplication of the waterworks aaid extension of the drainage scheme are also included in the pax>posals, and it is significant that had these sections of the loan proposals alone been carried a rate would have been necessary, for they are not amongst profit-earning ventures, however necessary they may b© for the public welfare. It was only by includinig in the ■■scheme the profitable enterprises already mentioned that it became possible to regard the scheme, ■as a whole, as one involvingi mo additional taxation. Then there are two other features of the _ proposals which should not escape notice. One is that of road expenditure, £15,000. This will involve an annual charge of about £900. But the Council has for some years past been spending £4000 a year out of rates upon, roadi conistruotion, so that a direct saving of irate expenditure to a very large amount is here ensured upon one item alone. Then again it appears that it was costing the town £1300 a year to cart its rubbish away, and deposit it where it was a menace to public health. The destructor, which is part of the tnew loan proposals, will isave the town £800 a year on this item. The proposals as a whole beaa* the impress of a business mind, the clear brain of a far-seeing man who can take a comprehensive grasp of the position, and devise his plans accordingly. This is the Mayor, Mr J. Vigor Brown, who is described as Napier's best living asset. We might we! sigh for such a Mayor for Blenheim for the next five years or so! It will be seen from the proposals that the principle is fully recognised of constructing permanent works out of capital, raised by loan, rather than attempting to do so from th© ordinary annual revenue of a borough. The latter is sufficient for maintenance, but aiot for capital charges, and it is in attempting to ■apply it to this purpose that we get into trouble. Napier, for instance, has realised that it is better to pay £900 a year upon interest and sinking fund to provide £15,000 for street-making, (rather than spend £4000 a year out of ordinary .revenue for the same purpose ; and that it is more businesslike to borrow money for a destructor at a cost of £500 annually than to cart away the rubbish at a loss of £1300. These are points which should appeal strongly to opponents of loans, who should at least examine any isuch proposal in all its bearings before condemning it. Take our own case with regard to road construction. We go on year after year frittering away rates in gravel, and never really making the streets, when possibly less expenditure upon interest 'and' /sinking fund would provide the capital to make a perfect and lasting work. Last year we spent on gravel £316, and as soon as it is ground to dust and blown away there will be nothing to show for it, and we keep on> fatuously repeating the process year by year, with the same ineffective results. It never seems to occur to anyone that this sum of £300 a year would provide) a loan of £5000 with which a considerable amount of asphalting could be done, and the streets thus put into permanent order. And all the time we are paying interest upon an overdraft in order to keep going as w© are. In other depaaitments the same thing applies. The example of our gas--works loan is a further illustration of the'_ point. In that department J whatever profits were earned were applied to extensions upon so small a scale as to fail to provide for the demand for gas. The loan, however, enabled mains to be laidl at once, which under the former plan would have taken years to do, and the profits upon the outlay began accruing immediately, and after providing for interest and sinking fund on the loan air© leaving a bit to spare. The contrast between the Napier and the Blenheim methods really arises from the diffeience in the administrative abilities of the respective municipal leaders. There they have a vigorous and1 fair-seeing Mayor, backed up by an energetic-and progressive Council, whose policy is

endorsed by a go-alioad _ community. Here we have been suffering from our affairs being in the hands of meai who were utterly lacking in all the essential qualifications for initiating a bold and comprehensive scheme of progress and carrying it into effect. But we have now a. new body of municipal managers, from whom better things are expected..