South Canterbury Times, TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 1883.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3126, 10 April 1883, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 1883.

Borough CoUDcil’s financial position, both in regard to the general account and the waterworks account, is now, we are pleased to learn, thoroughly sound and encouraging. This being the case, we would respectfully submit that the time has now arrived for the Council to consider the feasibility of lowering the rates, which are excessively high. The “ incidence of taxation ” is a matter which every ratepayer of this Borough is familiar with, and with which he is only too well acquainted. It is only fair to ask the Council to lower the water rate, per house, for instance, since the works now in operation are highly reproductive. For example, the Wai-iti road extension, which cost the Council less than £7OO, yields a revenue of something like thirty-three per cent. It is not the Council’s business to hoard op funds, but to take advantage of a good revenue to lighten the burden of taxation, which now falls heavily on the community. There is no doubt whatever that to lower the rate, and cheapen the cost of connection, would induce a far more general consumption.

In Auckland, His Excellency the Governor is to open the Art Societies’ Exhibition to-morrow, and in Dunedin there is a proposal to hand over the Athenamm to the Borough Council for use as a public library. Two gratifying signs of progress from extreme points of the Colony cannot be allowed to pass without notice. The reproach is sometimes levelled at New Zealand, very unjustly, that she has no institution on so magnificent a scale as the Public Library in Melbourne. Those who so speak seem to forget that Melbourne is the one centre to which

all the wealth, enterprise, and talent of the colony converge, whereas in New Zealand we have several rival centres of population and headquarters of industry, aud our wealth and talent are more distributed. Besides, we are not ambitious to see one centre absorb everything from the others. At the same time it would be satisfactory to see a growing disposition on the part of the people to encourage the growth of art in this country. There never was a country more fitted to be a nursery of landscape painting. There is no need to travel far in search of subjects, and some of onr wealthy men might bestow their money worse than in founding a shool of art in the colony. The present schools of design in the larger towns but partially supply the want and their functions are purely rudimentary; what we want is a school of painting. Side by side with this is the question of free public libraries which have always played an important part in *he education of the people. The proposition now mooted in Dunedin to throw the splendid collection of the Athenaeum open to the public, is one which cannot fail to command universal approbation, and the example of which may induce other centres to follow in the same direction. We feel sure that in such schemes as these His Excellency the Governor would be found a willing worker and a wise counsellor.