FIFTY YEARS AGO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15964, 8 July 1915, Page 10

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

MAINTENANCE OF STREETS. COSTLY AND UNSATISFACTORY. (From the Rebai-D of July 7, 1865.) The -financial position of the City Board demands the most serious and careful attention. The respected chairman. Mr. Bain, has ma.ked this subject as one to which he will give special consideration. Now what are the exact circumstances of the case? We have within the city boundaries very many miles of streets requiring forming and making. The levelling and paving of these miles of streets will cost a. very large sum of money. The present rates are utterly insufficient to do one-tenth part of the work in ten years. If the streets were all made and in good repair, the present rates would not keep them in repair according to our present system. Queen Street is at once a proof of this. The system of taking round the hat to each owner of property in any particular street and asking him to subsidise the rates by voluntary contribution is as ineffectual as it is foolish, and is burdensome to the individuals who subScribe. They are constantly complaining that their streets are impassable after they have given their subsidy. And so there is a payment of rates, a subsidy equal to the amount of rates for a number of years, and the streets are very little improved, and as far from being permanently made as ever. Thus a larger amount is spent on mere temporary makeshifts of a most convenient character than the present tenants and owners would need to pay to have the work done in a permanent and satisfactory manner. The system is, first, not to attempt to saddle all the expense of making streets on any one year, but to spread it over a term of years; and secondly, cease squandering our money on mere makeshifts any more than we can possibly avoid.