IGNORING THE RATEPAYER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22512, 1 September 1936, Page 10

IGNORING THE RATEPAYER

Auckland ratepayers should make a mental note of the City Council's habit of exercising power to borrow without taking a loan poll. This habit is growing dangerously. A total loan of £71,600, to be expended on five schemes, was approved at the meeting last night, and this amount, together with £20,000 previously raised without reference to the ratepayers, is authorised solely by special order. The schemes themselves may be unexceptionable. Indeed, some of them represent work urgently required. But recourse to a method of finance that ignores the ratepayers is wrong in principle and may easily become bad in practice. Possibly, when the Mayor says that it is not .contemplated that any loan polls will be taken in the near future, he is partly prompted by the indifI ference of the ratepayers when the | last loan project was put before | them. This fact may be reckoned against them as a body, but it is I going too far to turn this into an j argument for proceeding as if they have neither responsibilities nor rights. They cannot devolve their responsibilities, and their rights remain even if, on occasion, they neglect to exercise them. It may be said that for each of the schemes approval can be assumed; but it is the assumption itself that is objectionable. From a safe assumption the council may too easily proceed to others that are by no means safe, fallaciously taking for granted a compliance that ratepayers would be loth to manifest or would withhold. The normal method, where expenditure of loan money is intended, is to give ratepayers, who have to bear the financial burden in the last resort, an opportunity to say whether they approve the raising of a» loan, and recourse to special authority apart from them ought to be reserved for extremely abnormal occasions. The council should avoid, as far as possible, the turning of exceptions into a rule.