TOWNSHIP LOANS.

Patea Mail, 17 August 1880, Page 2

TOWNSHIP LOANS.

The Town Districts Bill being postponed, the facility of raising a, loan for local improvements cannot become available for townships that have not got municipal powers. The Government had here introduced a Bill which would have been a real public benefit, and against which no opposition was anticipated from any section in Parliament : and it does seem deplorable that in selecting Bills to be dropped in order to close the session, the Government should have discriminated so badly as to sacrifice probably the most useful measure they have devised this session. Several townships in this County are in urgent need of local improvements, such as street formation, drainage, tree planting, and perhaps water supply; all being works which present funds are too small to carry out. Borrowing powers, with rates as security, would supply a facility much needed to promote the well-being of growing townships in this district and in every part of the colony. Hawera stands in urgent need of a drainage scheme, supplemented with a water supply. Waverley needs a loan for street formation ; and a belt of timber would make the place much pleasanter by breaking the wind. Patca is much behind the requirements of the increasing population in street formation, in footpaths, and in that special local necessity a protecting belt of timber. This investment in a broad lino of timber would soon be so remunerative commercially', that wo regard it as of exceptional importance; and there would be the immediate benefit in making the town more attractive to new comers, and vastly pleasanter to those who at present endure the bleak windiness of the place as the chief affliction of life.