South Canterbury Times WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1900.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2954, 28 November 1900, Page 2

South Canterbury Times WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1900.

The Mayor on Monday evening congratulated the Borough Council on the way the rates were coming in. “It was only necessary to let the ratepayers know that money was wanted, and they paid up well,” he said, or words to that effect. He meant money wanted in an emergency, of course, for money is always wanted, has been wanted for years past, since for lack of it the ratepayers have had to pay interest on a continuous overdraft The Council and its officers have got into a bad system of getting in the rates, anyhow. Some people pay their rates promptly, and part of their payments goes to pay interest on the unpaid rates of others. It is surprising that the former have made no protest against that system. The officials have been forced into this by the Councillors themselves setting a bad example. We do not know how the case is now, but at one time it was standing joke at the Council meetings that members had not paid their rates, and when it was proposed to sue for rates the Councillors chaffed one another about being sued before others The Council have been content to scratch along ” anyhow rather than make the ratepayers pay up, and rather than increase the rates, though until recently the rates collected did the Borough no good, being wholly obsorbed by the payments to the Harbour and Hospital Boards. The system of borrowing for ordinary current expanses is a thoroughly bad one for a municipality, as for an individual. Timaru people are well enough off to pay their way from yejar to year, and are foolish to throw their money away in playing interest on lonas for previous years’ domestic expenses. The badness of the system seems not unlikely to be brought home to them in a very disagreeable fashion shortly.

In the face of their impecunious position they throw away a chance of augmenting their income from the water supply, by clumsy haggling over the terms of supplying the Freezing Works. They are behaving in this matter as if it were no concern of theirs whether the Christchurch Meat Company obtains water from the Borough off not; as if it must be a onesided bargain in any case, with all the advantage on the side of the company, and therefore the only part the Council need take in the negotiations is to say whether they will or will not accept any t-cnns the Council may offer. To an onlooker, it appears that the advantage must be mutual, that the Council should be at least as anxious to make a bargain as the company The Council apparently does not think so; has made no effort by proposing alternative terms to secure the additional revenue offered. • In their present financial position, the Council should be zealous in making bargains that will bring in revenue from the water, and should consider what alternatives they can reasonably offer the company. For example, a four years’ contract is a very short one, and might be extended considerably without disadvantage to either side. The company might pay the cost of connection, besides the 4d per 1000 they offer, if not at once then by an increased price till it wa: paid off. Or by judicious bargaining they might “split the difference." And whatever bargain was made, the Council might look upon it as an interminable one, for the works are not likely to got any other supjfly if once they are efficiently accommodated from the I’areora, it has been argued that the town mills, who get water at Id per 1000, also pay rates, but as the Mayor pointed out, if the Freezing Works took a certain equal quantity they would at 4d pay more than the mills. There would then remain tlie cost of connections to be imported into this comparison, and that could no doubt be worked in and wo iked off on ; some terms reasonable to both parties. As (he case stands now, the Council are throwing away water on one hand, and possible revenue on the other.

How different is the coinin''! of the negotiations between the Allies and China from that of those between the Colonial Office and (lie Transvaal. The represent alines of the Allies are considering, with very great care and a, slowness that is trying ta the spectators, the terms which are to bo demanded from China. The Secretary ? or

the Colonics did not trouble himself to

formulate any terms at all, but merely demanded offers from the Transvaal Government, and contented himself with rejecting what he did not approve of, and demanding fresh offers This would have been a quicker way of dealing with China, But we are not prepared to say that it would have been, a better way than the one that has been adopted.