The Opunake Times. TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1894. £8000 LOAN FOR WAIMATE.

Opunake Times, Volume I, Issue 4, 17 July 1894, Page 2

The Opunake Times. TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1894. £BOOO LOAN FOR WAIMATE.

We have tried to get information about this proposal, but iiucl that it is apparently a secret service job. Why, in such a matter, there should be anj reluctance to give every possible information for the benefit of the ratepayers, is beyond our ken. If the proposal, whatever it may be, is a fair and just one, then it need not be afraid to see the light, and those who are endeavoring to bring it about should court every publicity. If, on the other baud, there is any move in it which will not bear inspection, we take this opportunity of warning the promoters that there is every probability of it 3 failure, and that their time and trouble will be only wasted. As far as we know the proposal originally was that £3OOO or £4OOO should be borrowed under the Government Loans to Local Bodies Act for the purpose of putting the Main South Koad iu thorough repair through the Waimato riding. Then the Manaia Koad loading from Manaia to Kaponga was tacked on to the Joan proposal, and this necessitated raising the proposed loan to £6OOO. Then rumors gained currency that stttlers on certain bye-roads would oppose the proposal tooth and nail unless their particular roads were included. What effect this threat has had we are not in a position to say, as the proposal is kept a State secret. However, when we next hear of the loan it has expanded to £BOOO, so we may infer that the promoters have provided themselves with a further £2OOO with which to purchase the consent of these recalcitrant bye-road ratepayers. The promoters would appear to be quite adept? at poliiicd logrolling, and it recalls the grand old Yogelian days of borrowed money and purchased support. We understand that petitions are to be signed for this, or perhaps they are already signed, but in either case those signing will be doing so in the dark. Wo understand that a great number of ratepapers who favor the loan do so because they are led to believe that the interest will be paid out of general riding revenue. We also hear that the township of Manaia is to be excluded from the voting area, and if this is done, according to the Act, the special rate will have to be levied and "paid. Unqmslionably the township. wiU get the greatest benefit from the roads being made, and we see no reason, from a fair play point of view, why it should not contribute its .quota of the cost. Then, for the purpose of expending the loan the district is to be divided iuto an eastern and western subdivision, on paper, having, we believe, the Otakeho river and Anroa real block line as a boundary. The amount.-; to bo spent in each subdivision are to be earmarked, quite a parliamentary procedure. If part of the loan is to be spent on distiiet rods we presume this will have to be

raised by the Waimate Road Board, which will make another delightful complication. Our adv'cc to ratepayers is, before signing any petition, to have a clear understanding first of what they are doing. We cannot see the utility of making one large area Tor the purposes of such a loan, and the promoters, by subdividing, the area:, for-" it's expenditure, show they are of the same opinion. If the western subdivision is to get no advantage from being included in a large area, then we ,see no reason why it should not strike its own rate, raise its own loan, and be on its own footing. The same reasoning will also apply to the eastern subdivision. Now that the portion of Waimate, east of the Palmer and Inaba Roads, is cut out of Waimate and joined to Hawera all chance of a county of Waimate is gone, and the simplest mode of dealing with the remainder would be as follows. The portion of Waimate left will be entitled to three members in the Hawera County Council, and this again entitles them to three ridings. Therefore, cut it up into three ridings, and let each riding raise its own loan. If this were done, in the event of any hitch occurring in the payment of interest out of general rate through the exclusion of the Manaia township from the rating area, it would only be the one riding which would be affected, viz: the eastern one. Judging by the original draft expenditure, which we saw very liberal provision was made "out of the loan for this western end, so that there would be very little general rate required on this side for some years to come, whereas for the eastern end the estimate seemed very low, and we believe it would take all the ten per cent which may be borrowed without any further reference to the ratepapers, as well as all the surplus rates from both western and eastern end for some time to come to put the roads in the eastern end in the same state of repair.