The Waipa Post. Published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1922. MUNICIPAL THOROUGHFARES.

Waipa Post, Volume XXI, Issue 1301, 7 October 1922, Page 4

The Waipa Post. Published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1922. MUNICIPAL THOROUGHFARES.

ALTHOUGH there has been little discussion at organised assemblies anent the defeat of the Te Awamutu Borough Council's £25,000 streets and footpaths loan proposals, it is abundantly certain, judging from chance discussions, that the realisation is dawning of the imperative need for some better provision for the future needs. The Borough Council at its meeting a fortnight ago made it perfectly clear that until finances improved and the adjustment of accounts, made necessary by recent legislation was completed, but little of the annual recurring revenue would be available for works of public utility. The Council must necessarily mark time until it overtakes the leeway of the past, a leeway that arises out of a complete legislative change of policy in\ respect to bookkeeping and finance. In such circumstances, little wonder that the people are uneasy and that the future prospect is viewed with well-founded misgiving. Judicious borrowing and expenditure is the only possible solution to a problem upon the treatment of which largely depends the future of Te Awamutu. More than the need to plunge into any new undertakings there is the urgent necessity for supplementing past expenditure to make expended street loans adequate to the demands of the increasing volume of heavy traffic. In a measure, in the consideration of future borrowing, the solution is between a drift into such a condition which allows reckless waste to go unchecked or a moderately planned system of loan expenditure for protection of partly completed works which are now being pounded away. And to this extent at least the Council's last proposals were not grasped by the voting public. But no good can be done by idle regrets. The need to-day is to rectify errors of judgment and to pave the way for sound municipal policy in the future. And, that being the case; some systematic effort must be made to revive, at least in part, the rejected loan proposals. The Chamber of Commerce might well give thought to such a serious position in the town's affairs and set a 'lead. If the Chamber, or any other competent organisation of townspeople whose welfare is'> indisputably wrapped up in the town's progress could call together an assembly of ratepayers, good results would follow. A citizens' committee, conferring with the Borough Council, would discover how great were the misunderstandings of the past, and, in any case, out of the discussions between elective and non-elective bodies proposals adequate to meet the undoubted needs could find expression. This much is certain, whatever the means employed or the procedure adopted, some systematic effort must be made in the very near future to remove the cause of wasteful, costly maintenance into which the Borough's fbading affairs are surely drifting.