Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1912. MUNICIPAL LOAN PROPOSALS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12826, 27 July 1912, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1912. MUNICIPAL LOAN PROPOSALS.

When the Borough Council took the sum of £15,750 from the general loan for municipal improvements and applied it to the purpose of constructing a tramway to Gentle Annie quarry its' action met with a very general and hearty endorsement from the ratepayers. It required some courage on the part of Councillors to break from the policy that, had been adopted prior to the raising of the loan of bringing m the metal by Straker waggon, but Councillors, under, the advice' of their Engineer, subsequently endorsed by the consulting engineer, Mr Metcalfe undoubtedly pursued a right course m laying down % tramway for the obtainment of more adequate supplies' of metal than it would have been possible to procure under the system originally proposed. The pity is that Gisbprne had not embarked on a

tramway scheme for the delivery of metal many years before. The quarry tramway has, m our opinion, thoroughly justified its existence. It is true that' our streets are still m. a deplorable condition, consequent mainly upon the effect of sewerage operations, and that doubts are still held by some people as to the efficacy of Gentle Annie stone for roadmaking purposes, but had there been no tramway and nothing but carts and Straker waggoTis to depend upon the town would have been m. a. very much worse plight. The patching that has been done has been of a very temporary cltaracter, and, it has been the Engineer's contention all along that the metal should' not be judged on the results of its use m this way; further "he ■ has held that the only satisfactory way of "applying such metal m the light of modern engineering experience is to waterproof it with a coating of tar. The Engineer contends that the metal has excellent binding qualities^ and when properly laid down and tarred, as our streets will be under his scheme of construction, an example .of which is to be seen m Peel street, leading to the railway station, good durable road surfaces will be obtained. The Council proposed to take £15,750, the cost of the tramway, from the recent £75,000 loan and to apply the amount to a refund of the former loan, on which it was made a charge, but through some informality m which this proposal was submitted'in the £75,000 loan proposal, it has been necessary to again approach the ratepayers for their definite assent to this proposition. . That is why the Council is again before the ratepayers on a loan proposal. It is not proposed to borrow more money than has already been approved of for road construction purposes; the money has been arranged for and is actually available at the lowest possible rate of interest, but all the Council is now asking the ratepayers to 'do is to remedy a technical irregularity m connection with the former poll. We should think the ratepayers would have little hesitation m acceding to the Council's request. The loads must be put m good order, and the Council should be placedx m a position to continue the work of construction on a permanent basis. If the loan proposal is carried the Council sees its way to continue the work at a substantial rate of progress for three years without coming to the ratepayers for further money; if the loan is defeated, the opportunity of getting the money now available at a cheap rate will be gone, road construction will have to cease, and Gisborne will be m a worse mess than ever it has been m.. We trust that there will no hesitation to approve of the loan. If the" ratepayers distrust the present administration, they have their opportunity, as the Mayor pointed out to our representative yesterday, to put m other administrators at an early date and the money will be available for /the new executive to deal with on" more economical lines if it is passible to devise any system that will give better results. The Council is also approaching the ratepayers with a proposal to borrow £15,000 to more completely equip the electric light station so that it will be m a, position to develop its business. This is a measure of prudence that is absolutely imperative if the electric light enterprise on which the municipality has embarked is to be made a commercial success. (There is no reason to doubt that this will be one of the municipal undertakings which will prove thoroughly remunerative. It should eventually, if experience elsewhere goes for anything, result m a surplus of revenue that will be available to reduce the rates. The power station is a community concern which requires the support of the people, and it is a reasonable demand that is now made to» the ratepayers, who are shareholders m the enterprise, to authorise the raising of additional capital to enable the business to reach out for greater revenue. The investment, we believe, would be a thoroughly safe and remunerative one, and we have little hesitation m recommending, the ratepayers .to give their,.approval.^ this,-anyft lfcm., * f\ \