WANGANUI’S DEBT.

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19407, 6 November 1934, Page 10

WANGANUI’S DEBT.

FURTHER REDUCTION MADE. * TWO LOANS REPAID. A reduction of Wanganui’s indebtedness by £37,170 was made last Thursday with the repayment of two loans, one of £33,590 on Hie corporation gas undertaking and the other of £3580 on the opera house. The transaction was the cause of a mild celebration sponsored by the gas department, at which it was pointed out that the administration of civic affairs which 'has operated-over the past four years has brought about a reduction in the city’s debt of £165,531. It was shown by the town clerk, Mr G. Murch, that the loan indebtedness of Wanganui at March 31, 1931, was £1,117,934. To-'day that figure stood at £952,103, but there were accrued sinking,funds In hand to a total of £140,306, making the net public debt on November 1, £811,797. The figures quoted toy Mr Murch showed, further, that a reduction of £59,955 had taken place ■since March 31, 1934. The Mayor, Mr N. G. Armstrong,'' paying tribute to those who had worked hard during the past four years, which he said w.ere the most critical in the city’s history, described Wanganui as “no mean city.” Like all other centres,' Wanganui had suffered toy the depression. Past ” councils were not to blame, in that there was a fever of borrowing throughout the country. The feeling

was that it did not matter how much was borrowed; it would all come right * in the end. But the whole country had been brought up with a sudden jolt . If ’it slipped back into the old ways of over-borrowing there would always be a bad time ahead. The only common-sense policy was to live within revenue. If Wanganui con---liuiued that policy there was no reason why it .should not go ahead. Cr. W. M. Falconer toasted the “Sinking Fund Commissioners," and said that the sinking funds had been very wisely invested in Wanganui. They had resisted pressure to invest the funds in ordinary mortgages, with the result that the funds to-day were soundly invested. Under the city’s loan conversion scheme the task of the commissioners would be easier, in that the conversion provided for automatic absorption of the funds.