TE ARO RECLAMATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 7342, 5 December 1884, Page 5

TE ARO RECLAMATION.

It is much to be regretted that the City Council hia determined on committing itself to the Te Aro Reclamation without having previously counted the cost and provided the means. Wo have no hesitation in saying that neither of those necessary conditions precedent to the undertaking has been fulfilled, and it is beyond our comprehension, therefore, how the Mayor should have expressed satisfaction at the adoption of Councillor JS. Brown’s resolution, and regretted that “this business-like manner of dealing with the question ” had not been adopted from the beginning. The £3 5,000 exists only in Councillor Brown’s imagination, or, which amounts practically to the same thing, there are already claims against the balance of the loan sufficient to absorb the greater part, if not the whole of it. Then there is no proper estimate of the cost of that portion of the work which the Council has now pledged itself to take in hand. No man in his private business would commence the reclamation on such a footing. But a City Council is not a private individual, and it has the ratepayers to fall back on, who, in case of matters going badly, must for very shame sake help their representatives out of the mire. Of course the ratepayers can do so, only the operation will be costly, as the clearing up of every .financial muddle must be. It is only the other day that the Council adopted a settled plan of finance with regard to the Te Aro Reclamation, and looked on a loan as necessary. Now, no loan is wanted, and the business is concluded out of hand, as though it were some paltry job involving the expenditure of a ten pound note.