CONSTITUTIONAL OR OTHERWISE?

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10018, 14 April 1910, Page 5

CONSTITUTIONAL OR OTHERWISE?

(To the Editor). Sir,—Now that the Mayoral election is so close it would perhaps be a convenient stage to propound a query which the Mayor may be able to answer, and which many ratepayers would like an answer to. It has reference to the proposed improvement of the northern approach. It seems that a large sum is about to be contributed by the Borough Council towards this work. Now, I would like to ask by what legal authority the expenditure on behalf of the Borough is to be made? Surely the ratepayers are entitled to a say in the matter. I have always been under the impression that a Council could only expend sums above a certain amount on works classed as "urgent," by the expression "urgent" being meant where, say, irreparable damage might result unless immediate preventive steps were taken, or in some like event. It is surely straining to breaking point the construction of such a meaning to class the improvement of the northern approach as urgent in that sense. Now, why has the Borough Council feared to face the ratepayerston this question? Perhaps there is a reasonable anticipation that the scheme wuuld be rejected. If the Governor-in-Council has to approve the loan there is every reason lor such assent to be withheld in the present circumstances. It is all very well for improvement to be made out of big sums of public, money, but let the thing be done in a constitutional way. There is a grave question involved in this northern approacn loan, and it demands an immediate answer.—l am, etc., VOTER. Masterton, April 13th. v'Apart from the point raised by cur correspondent we certainly do not think that the ratepayers would agree to wooden structures were the question submitted to them.—Ed. W.A).