LOCAL PUBLIC WORKS LOAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23084, 9 January 1937, Page 10

LOCAL PUBLIC WORKS LOAN

Some ' misapprehension seems to exist in the minds of certain ratepapers with regard to the procedure that is to be followed by. the City Council preliminary to the raising of the proposed loan of £ 100,000 for public works. It is assumed by these ratepayers that they will have a voice in the determination of the question whether the Joan is or is not to be raised. This is a mistaken assumption. A local authority is authorised by legislation that was passed last session to borrow, without a poll of the ratepayers, unless one is specially demanded, funds for the execution of public works in cases in which the expenditure is to be subsidised out of the unemployment funds at the disposal of the Government It is the authority thus conferred upon it that is being exercised by the City Council, its expectation being that the subsidy upon the expenditure will, as has been indicated by Councillor Silverstone, upon whose motion the loan is being projected, amount to about £30,000. The loan is being raised by a “ special order;” the meaning of which, in terms of the legislation, is that a resolution to borrow the funds that are sought, after being carried at one meeting of the City Council, is confirmed at a subsequent meeting. In this instance that subsequent meeting will be held on the 18th inst. It is only upon, the presentation, prior to that date, of a demand by not fewer than 5 per cent, of the ratepayers that the op- • portunity can be secured by the ratepayers as a body of expressing their concurrence in, or opposition to, the loan. The principle under whic.i the ratepayers are enabled to veto loan proposals is distinctly salutary. It may occasionally have operated in such a way as tended to checs progress, but it has also at times served as a safeguard of the interests of a community against extravagance and waste on the part of an administrative body. The suspension of the principle of “ trusting the people,” upon which. Mr Seddon used to lay.,stress, so that it does ,not necessarily apply to loans that are to be subsidised out of the Unemployment Fund and that, are thus to be spent, at least in part, in the relief of unemployment, does not, in existing circumstances, commend itself as wholly desirable,