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New Zealand Mail, Issue 777, 21 January 1887, Page 22

The result of this year’s valuation of the property in the City of Wellington by Mr Ames, th 6 City Yaluer, shows a very marked and substantial improvement over that of last year. The increase iu aggregate rateable value is about £30,000 for general rating, and about £20;000 for waterrating purposes. This is an equivalent to an addition of over £2OOO a year to the proceeds qf the general city rate without any increase being made in the amount of tbe rate itself. Nor is this handsome increment obtained by any arbitrary enlargement of individual property-values. Had that been the case, it would have been virtually fictitious. It is due to the material advance made by the city since the last valuation. We have not the slightest intention of entering here into a discussion upon the values of Wellington properties or the state and prospects of Wellington trade. We recognise at once that there must be differences of opinion on these points according to the standpoint from which the case is viewed. This question does not arise in the present instance, because the additional values are attributable almost entirely to actual additions to the city property. For instance, there are the new Reclaimed Land sections—now in private hands ; there are the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company’s station and buildings and land ; there have been some 30 or 40 new buildings erected —including the Opera House and various properties have been greatly improved. All these things count heavily in a valuation, and the result is, as we have said, an increase of some £20,000 in. rateable value, exclusive of £IO,OOO under the wate-rate valuation. This, coupled with the surplus of £2,000 declared by the late Mayor to be tbe result of the last financial period’s operations, ought to place the civic exchequer iu a fairly comfortable position. We fear, however, that it would be idle to look for any decrease in the city rates at present. Indeed, so very much needs to be done to render the city comfortable and to improve its sanitary condition, that we must be thankful if wo can effect what is most imperatively required without any increase, in therates being necessitated. Every day enhances the urgency of the drainage question, with which we have already trifled far too long, and at imminent peril to our own health and liveß, Cavalierly as the Council treated this grave subject the other night, they will yet find it needful to face the problem boldly, resolutely, and practically. For if they do not, they will assuredly awake some day to find themselves the subject of popular execration. The public will not submit for ever to have the lives and health of themselves and their families recklessly sacrificed through neglect of the plainest sanitary precautions. The outcome of this unusually warm and dry season will not be fully realised for another month or two, but it is to be feared that we shall then discover how heavy - s a penalty has to be paid for our neglect. No time ought to be lost in initiating some systematic action in the direction indicated by tbe Mayor. Nothing of a permanent nature can be done without such a plan as he proposed to have prepared. Hitherto we have been simply frittering away our borrowed money in a shiftless, desultory sort of way, without any definite or consistent plan of operations at all. Another matter which, calls for prompt attention and will compel considerable expenditure, is the state of the streets and roads. These in many cases have been

allowed to fall into a deplorable state •of dilapidation. To give one very glaring instance, take the Wellington Terrace, where, owing to lack of timely repairs, the road metal has in numerous places totally disappeared, the wheels of vehicles having cut right through it into the bare clay, so that after even a slight sbower of rain the road is a Beries of mud-holes and pools of water. It will cost far more to perform the work, which cannot be much longer shirked, of putting that road into a decent state than it would to have kept it in good order all along. The difference to the public comfort need not be pointed out. This case is but one of many, but it is so remarkably close to the heart of the city—almost within a stone’s throw' of the ■Corporation offices—that it forms a' peculiarly glaring illustration. If an important and favourite thoroughfare close to the heart of the city be thus neglected, what may be expected of the streets in the outlying parts of the city ? Yet the residents in all those neglected localities have to pay their share toward the civic funds, The work of putting the streets into thorough repair ought to be done while the fine weather lasts. If delayed until the autumn rains set in, a vast amount of money and labour will he wasted through the wholesale swallowing-up of material in the mudholes. Now is the time to set vigorously to work, and as the Municipal finances appear to be in a fairly satisfactory position, there is no excuse for further procrastination