EIGHT MILLIONS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11028, 17 March 1914, Page 1

EIGHT MILLIONS.

• LOANS TO NEW ZEALAND BOROUGHS. • DECADE OF-EXPENSIVE ENTERPRISE. [From Oto Cobresfoxdext.] WELLINGTON, March 16. Local bodies in New' Zealand have pursued during the last ten years a very active policy in regard to costly undertakings such as electric tramways, drainage and water supply, lighting, abattoirs and street widening. The result is that on the latest , calculation which has.been.made for a new.edition of the Municipal Year Book about to be published the outstanding- loans of boroughs amounts to £8,357,904. This amount' involves the payment* annually of £'170,715 in, interest and sinking fund. The average rate of interest is 4.46 per cent, but ten years ago (when the indebtedness of, boroughs was less than half of to-day's total) they paid nearly 5 ner cent as a rule. Further savings of interest are, anticipated as the operation of the State Guaranteed Advances Act is extended. As an indication of the .way in-which loan money is spent the following analysis of last year's loan expenditure, totalling £889,182. is instructive:— Streets, footways and bridges, £182,251; drainage and sanitation, £205,373 ; waterworks, £169,447 ; tramways, £61,224; abattoirs and pounds, £15.596; lighting and power services, £134,873; other public works £103,985; management, interest and sundries, £16,433. . ' It is shown that just as, loans have doubled in a decade the yearly receipts and spendings of the boroughs have gone up in the same proportion. Lenders can have little to complain of tn regard to one important security for their advances, the rateable capital value of the 116 boroughs of the dominion being nearly £107,000.000 sterling, while £872.394 was collected in rates last year. About half of these receipts went to meet loan charges. The : loan indebtedness of the four centres is returned as .follows:—'

Auckland, £1,433,100; Wellington, £2,309,816; Christchurch, £421.59-5; Dunedin, £1,799,761. The Christchurch tramways are publicly owned, but their capital cost, £647,368, floes not appear in the city indebtedness. Nearly £500,000 of Wellington's indebtedness is duo to the expenditure on its tramway system.