WATER LOAN AND BOROUGH POLICY

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6538, 21 February 1928, Page 6

WATER LOAN AND BOROUGH POLICY

(To tho Editor.) •Sir, —So much has been said and so much has been written in your daily columns in connection with the recent water loan proposals that a small survey of the defeat may not be out of the question, as various reasons are given for tho result attained. To me the chief reason can only be assigned is that the ratepayers have lost confidence in the Councillors spending their income to the best advantage. The method of street maintenance is one of a patch-work policy, that has nothing to commend itself beyond the fact that the money is not well or wisely spent. Lot me illustrate this by fact. Within the past two years practically all the side streets between Main and Featherston streets were scarified, metalled and rolled. And what do we find? Andrew Young, David, and Domain streets have since been twice tarred and fine metal spread thereon, while the other streets between Cuba and Featherston streets have been neglected. In consequence Bourko street now resembles more of a riverbed than a street, and is at present a living monument of a spend-thrift, patch-work policy. As the road was never properly graded and crowned even the channels cannot function for that reason. What is wrong with having a Kent and Ratepayers’ Association in Palmerston North, as it is only by these means that public attention will bo drawn to the many things that require to be righted.—-I am, etc., E. W. LONDON.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —The hue and cry of the loan man at the present moment is “clean water, pressure and progress." I know of a parrot dealer who Is teaching a flock of parrots to shout out the above hue and cry and it Is just possible the birds will be purchased by the borough council for propoganda purpqses. I notice ex-Cr. Crabb is on the job with a letter in to-day’s issue of the Manawatu Daily Times, If I remember aright there is a great photo. In the Borough handbook of the then Mayor Nash (including Cr, Crabb and others) on top- of the wall of the present dam waving the Union Jack. The question of boosting a loan Is reduced to a fine art very largely to keep- relations in receipt of a good salary while the poor devil of a ratepayer Is scratching for his life to pay his heavy crushing load of rates that Is draining the life blood out of the town. This propoganda, has humorous phases now and then. For a week prior to the taking of the poll the school children were told not to drink the water but on the day after polling day the water at all the schools was quite fit to drink.—Yours, etc., FULL UP WITH PROPOGANDA. [We publish this masterpiece to show just the type of mind that is opposing- progress in Palmerston North.—Ed. M D.T.]