The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1906. OPPORTUNITY TO SAVE £20 A WEEK.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 11979, 24 September 1906, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1906. OPPORTUNITY TO SAVE £20 A WEEK.

t o Fob the life of use we cannot understand why the Borough Council hesitate to purchase a motor waggon, and the least that can be Said is that it is a very nearsighted policy to adopt. It is over two years since MrHatrick first brought the matter under the notice of the Council, and though the question of the purchase of an up-to-date vehicle has occasionally been mentioned since, no steps have been taken to secure one. At the last meeting of the Council the Works Committee recommended that no action be taken at present in the matter, and so the thing has again been hung up for an indefinite period. If the Council had purchased a motor waggon when it was first advocated by Mr Hatrick, it would by this time have saved the Borough more than double its cost, and our City Fathers evidently still intend to fritter away the ratepayers' money by clinging to the old-fashioned method of carting metal. The Council's records contain the proof of the capabilities ■ of motor waggons and the probable savings that would be effected if one of these modern conveniences were installed here. They are in use in Auckland, Wellington, and other places in the colony, and the

various bodies which have experimented with them are loud in their praise of the new machines. In Auckland, for instance, the motor waggon in use there effects a saving of not less than £28 per week as compared with the work done formerly by horses and drays. This machine, (according to a letter received by the Council about twelve months ago) does the work of six two-horse drays, which formerly cost £1 each' per day, or £'3Q per week. It carries metal from the .Mount Eden quarry to all parts of the city, the amount varying according to the distance traversed. It can take daily six loads of syds each to Ponsonby (2i miles each way) and five loads of syds each a distance *of miles each way. The cost of running is but £7 17s per week, or about 2d per ton per mile, and that calculation includes fuel consumption ,£1 5s per week, oil for lubricating 6s, wages £3, repairs 10s per week, depreciation £2 2s, and interest on capital 14s. The price of the machines is between JEBOO and ,£9OO. The local bodies of Wanganui have to pay from 4s to 5s per yard for metal carted 2£ miles, and a good day's work for a horse and dray would be four such loads. The motor waggons, according to the Auckland figures, can deliver six loads of syds each per day — seven times as much as the ordinary dray, and the cost of running the former is certainly not twice as expensive as the latter. Mr Gilmour states that within the next five years the Council will have to face the question of re-metalling all the streets in the borough, and that being the case the necessity for purchasing a motor waggon is all the more- apparent. On the lowest basis, the Council should save JE2O per week, or ,£IOOO a year — equal to a reduction of 3d in the rates — by adopting the up-to-date and commensense method of dis^ tributing the metal. It is therefore unreasonable, unbusinesslike, and unfair to ttfe ratepayers to longer delay the purchase of a machine.