ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1913. MUNICIPAL PROPOSITIONS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVII, Issue 25, 30 January 1913, Page 4

ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1913. MUNICIPAL PROPOSITIONS.

Though the weather yesterday was perfect, and even the most delicate ; constitution would have been equal to ; the strain of reaching the polling- i booth, less than one-third of the ratepayers assisted in the settlement ot , the most important set of municipal j problems ever presented to them, j This indifference to issues ot extra- j ordinary moment, involving for a population of less than 5000 'contemplated liabilities aggregating in their maximum form £113,250, and m their minimum aspect £76,250, .passes comprehension. It is a striking instance of dereliction of civic duty. As matters stand now in regard to the water and sewerage project, a small minority of the ratepayers have decided, that the town must have all or nothing, and that £107,000, and1 not £70,000, must be the expenditure. This is the mandate of 229 people out of 1371 paying rates. It represents the wish of one out of every six or those who would be called on to "pay the piper'?! The situation is far from satisfactory. Nor is the real meaning of the voting at all clear. It may be that the burgesses are genuinely desirous of adopting the Waihopai gravitation scheme as preferable from an engineering point of view to the pumping process, and are prepared to shoulder its substantially greater cost. Or the selection of the larger alternative may have the ulterior purpose of defeating the . whole enterprise. The latter inference is by no means an , unjustifiable one; indeed, when all the attendant circumstances are taken into account, it has pretty, strong warrant. It has been freely urged by those who regard the introduction of a water and sewerage scheme at this stage of the town's development; as premature that the choosing of the Waihopai alternative would afford the opportunity of giving the movement its coup, de grace. They anticipate that the Council will be refused the authorisation that will now be sought for a supplementary loan of £41,000; and that this anticipation is well founded can hardly be doubted. : Throughout the discussion of the enterprise the cost of the Waihopai connection has been commonly accepted as prohibitive, and the Borough Council itself has all along ■openly discouraged the idea of saddling the municipality with this burden. In advising at the public meeting that an annual charge of £5798 would be far beyond the capacity of the Borough, the Mayor •expressed riot only his own opinion, butj 'also that ■of his colleagues. If theTWa'ihopai plan be adopted eventually the; Council will be required to carry otit: a project that its own judgment has condemned.^ That would not be a desirable position. If iii.the end the enterprise has to be postponed, its advocates will have to extract whatever consolation' they can from the consideration that the data now in hand will be pigeon-holed, and will represent some value for the money expended. Presumably the situation entirely depends on the willingness or otherwise of the rate-' payers to provide the Council with the extra £41,000. The mandate with respect to the Town Hall probably represents the general feeling. Perhaps the ratepayers would not have shown this disinclination to rescue their institution from oblivion if the question had not been , put to them with such an expensive company of issues. . It is regrettable that the future of an investment representing some £5500 is so indefinite; but no doubt the burgesses look to the Council to handle a rather bad bargain in the best possible way. The most conclusive and generally satisfactory outcome of yesterday's polling was the provision made for the financing of the bridge to be erected over the Opawa River at the end of Grove .Road and the ferro-concrete structure m western High Street.