THE COLONIST. WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 25, 1918. A FINAL WORD.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14875, 25 September 1918, Page 4

THE COLONIST. WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 25, 1918. A FINAL WORD.

In comparison with the other harbour districts of the Dominion, Nelson occupies' a peculiarly enviable position. The debt that has been accumulated in providing the existing improvements is small beside the expenditure other places havo had to incur for much less efficient facilities^ in many cases. The loan indebtedness of the Nelson Harbiour Board amounts to £65,000. Tho "ratepayers of other harbour districts with which comparisons may be made have shown their confidence in the future trade of their respective localities by sanctioning loans for various improvement schemes amounting to £2(k),----000 at Gisborne, £215,000* at Oamaru, £300,000 at New Plymouth, £223,000 at Wanganui, and £543,000 at Napier, in the majority of cases entailing'substantial rates. Until this year no rate ; has ever been collected from the N-el-I son harbour district; this year a small levy of one-sixth of a penny in the pound has become necessary in consequence of an emergency which could not have been avoided or overcome in any other way, and- which there-is very good reason for hoping may prove merely a passing stringency. The position therefore is that up to now Nelson has enjoyed its indispensable harbour facilities at no direct charge upon the ratepayers, a happy state of affairs in which it stands almost alone among the harbour districts of the Dominion The ratepayers are to-day invited to take the step of completing their harbour STn^/ by authori«ng * loan of £103,000 to effect' the purchase of tho wharves aud foreshore. Apart from its being very desirable that the wharves should be subject to the same control as the harbour, the proposal is more than ordinarily attractive from the point of view of an investment for reasons that have been sufficiently enlarged upon on previous occasions. The remarkable absence of opposition based upon any tangible grounds may be accepted as a general admission of the soundness of the proposition. We alluded yesterday to one specimen of such opposition as has become articulate, and to-day we have found space for another which may be said to be on an equal plane of impressiveness. Our correspondent of to-day adopts- a line of argument .which we confess is entirely new to us in application to loan proposals. It is a better tribute to his mathematical than his reasoning powers and it is perhaps useless' for us to tell him that calculating the yearly interest charge on the loan for the 36-} years of its currency and .ignoring the asset is not a fair or proper way of arriving at the cost of the transaction to tho public. The 'cost of the wharves is to be £103,000, and tile loan carries' a sinking fund which will extinguish it in 36* years, • when" the /wliarves arid foreshore endowment wijl.". beeomo-the unencumbered property of.'-tho -district. -If- our correspondent will extend his arithmetical researches to the revenue to be derived in the same period, taking the present figures as a-basis, he .will make other discoveries which are worthy of consideration. If our correspondent followed in.practice tho peculiar course of reasoning -.he commends to the ratepayers' he might hesitate before buying himself, a new tat. We all know that everything in +- c nature of structural works deteriorates, bi2 ( t it* is almost unnecessary % exphri that the cost of maintenance has ~ot been overlooked by the Harbour Board, and that the Railway Department's annual expenditure on repairs and renewals has in fact been ample to maintain the wharves in.-the good condition they are in to-day.. Our correspondent's picture of the blue ' ruin and, desolation which may overtake the city and district before. the loan is paid off need not, we fancy, agitate our readers more than other terrifying prophecies traceable the same source." It only remains to once more emphasise the fact that if the ratepayers neglect the present opportunity-it is, unlikely ever to rccur^ and certainly it never .will on tho favourable termsf available now. The. money also-can be obtained now at more liberal rates .than"are likely to rule in the futi;r.e,_, Everything considered the rejection of the proposal to. be submitted to-day would be a' blow to the district which we aro confident tWb ratepayers aro too ' practical and far-sighted to permit.