WOODVILLE AND PROGRESS.

Woodville Examiner, Volume 3, Issue 284, 17 September 1886, Page 3

WOODVILLE AND PROGRESS.

(to the editor.) Sir, —After an absence of nearly two years, I was again in your district a short time ago I need not particularise the great and marked improvements which are evident to all at a glance ; nor do I express any surprise as I had in the past complete faithin the future of a district so favored in the quality of its land, and a town so commanding from its central position. I need therefore not ask your kind permission to trespass on your valuable space to enlarge on the immense and rapid advance of the town and district, but will merely remark that I hope that advance will not be too fast, necessitating a recoil in the future. There is no reason why it should be so unless a process of undue inflation is pursued by those interested; and especially I would ask you, Sir, to use the great weight of the Examiner to oppose any such process. Unquestionably, the Examines has been the greatest lever the • Woodville district has had to lift it up and give prominence to its natural advantages as the home of a large community, and I feel certain that you will always deprecate any action which would tend to discount the future to benefit the present. I do, however, ask your indulgence to point out in what way I consider the district may very materially secure and strengthen its growing prosperity. I mean by taking advantage to the fullest extent of the local bills which became law last session. These bills which were a valuable, though unfortunately an incomplete attempt to deal with local government, are at present but little known, and I would suggest that all interested in town, country, or road regulations should as soon as possible after this issue study ■the new statutes of New Zealand and give immediate and practical effects to their provisions. I may here say I was pleased to see in your last issue that already in Woodville practical steps have been initiated to take advantage of the now “ Municipal Corporations Act," with a view to get the Town District constituted a borough—a change which I think cannot fail to be beneficial, I need therefore not enlarge on this topic; but would desire to say that a municipality necessarily prospers as its surrounding country flourishes, and that the chief drawback in all new districts in defective means of locomotion owing to the roads being bad. Great improvements hi roads and bridges have been effected lately in the Woodville , district, but much yet remains to be done; and I would suggest that immediate steps be taken by the outlying districts, such as the Heretaunga, the Maharahara, and the Puketoi, to work under the new “ Government Loans to Local Bodies Act,” an Act framed very much on the lines of Major Atkinson’s “ Koads and Bridges Construction Act” (repealed in 1885), but more liberal. Under it local bodies — town, country, or road —after a poll of the ratepayers, showing a majority of three fifths, can. borrow from Government Buch sums as may be requisite at o per cent interest per annum for 20 years (with a sinking fund of 21 per cent secured by special rate); such loan to be raised in and guaranteed by the colony. Under this act there is therefore nothing to prevent good roads radiating from ■\Voodville in all directions, and I mention this because it is of the first importance

to the outlying settlers and to the town traders, and I do not see why arrangements should not be male by all of local bodies so that the works could be proceeded with during the ensuing summer ; only let them be sure if they go in to the scheme to borrow a sufficient sum to complete the work desired. The question “ will it pay the ratepayers ?” is hardly worth discussing seriously, but if any is so short-sighted as not to see the advantages let him take counsel with more wise settlers who, in Pahiatua, Kiwitoa, and elsewhere saw the advantage 2 .or 3 years ago and are now enjoying the result at a merely nominal cost. I had proposed to say more, but I fear, Sir, I have already exceeded the limits yon will be willing to allow me in your columns. On a future occasion I shall be pleased with your permission to make additional remarks on the working of these Acts as applied to school buildings and other works of a local character. —I am, &c. Ignotus.