WATER LOAN PROPOSAL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 49, Issue 15049, 30 November 1923, Page 5

WATER LOAN PROPOSAL.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —At Monday night’s meeting in connection with the proposal* by . the Masterton Borough Council to raise a loan of £28,000 for improving the town water supply, I understand that Mr C. E. Daniell said that he considered the public should have further information upon the proposal before they could be expected to vote for it. Mr Daniell’s opinion is heartily endorsed .by a large number of ratepayers who have been waiting for Mr Daniell to follow up his remarks by placing his views before the public through the press. A few years ago, when the water loan for £16,500 was carried, we were told that the improvements then to be effected rvould

meet the requirements of the town for fiften or twenty years. This was to some extent right, as the water supply of Masterton is a really good one, and there is no necessity to tamper with it at present. If the lieadworks are shifted from the present site to a point in the gorge, it is quite possible that when this mountain -torrent is in flood we will find on occasions that our supply of water will be cut off altogether. The present intake has stood the test of time, and with a small expenditure can be made to meet our requirements for

several years to come. ■ Then why rush in and spend thousands of pounds upon a scheme that may give us very little, if any, better result? Surely we should have learned our lesson from the fact that thousands of pounds of loan moneys have been wasted upon the new drainage scheme, and the parts of the town which should have been drained will still have to remain under the old system. Thousands of pounds were wasted,—not spent to advantage—and the ratepayers are full up of voting for any more loans. The water loan is not a necessity, as we already have a very good supply. Then why vote for a loan of a huge sum like £28,000, which will have the effect of putting up the rates to a point that will make it difficult for a Masterton resident to pay his way? It is up to the ratepayers of Masterton to turn up at Wednesday’s poll and vote against the proposal, and sta t p, for the present, this cry of borrow, borrow, borrow. —I am, etc.,

CITIZEN. Masterton, November 30. th, 1923.