THE BOROUGH LOAN.

Gisborne Times, Volume VIII, Issue 490, 31 July 1902, Page 1

THE BOROUGH LOAN.

(To tho Editor of the Times ) Sir, —What do you think of tho Borough loan'? This question has been put to me more than once, and with your kind permission, I, as one of the first burgesses of Gisborno, will answer according to my lights. As history repeats itself, it is safe to judge the future by the past. Tho first Gisborne loan was £IO,OOO, for forming Gladstone road, this was more than a quarter of a century ago, the Council then called in experts to calculate tho rato required to produce tho necessary sinking fund to pay off the loan at the end of tho term. I then put two and three together, and found that tho rato fixed would be an utter failure, and time proved the correctness of my figures, for instead of producing £IO,OOO, it only produced £OOOO, and tho balance of £7OOO had to be borrowed from Paul to pay Peter ; and now it is proposed that tho new loan from Mark shall include £7OOO to pay Paul, and if this system of borrowing continues, by the time the Gisborne City Council calls upon Moses and Samuel, Gabriel’s last trump will have sounded, and they will find themselves too late for tho first resurrection, but in good time for tho next. If this be truo of tho £IO,OOO loan, it needs no prophet to prove the certainty of tho larger sum of £IO,OOO or £50,000 to become a millstone around the neck of tho present and future generation to come. The future generations are not here. Nevertheless, being unrepresented, we have even a greater reason why we should be just to them. We have no right to saddlo them with a debt for which they reeeivo nothing but an absolute, unsuitable mechanicul system of sewerage, instead of the cheapest, the best, and most scientific system discovered in our time. Coupled with this sewerage debt, will be the water schemo debt. Water from Waihirore 1 I have drunk that water for six mouths, and, much as I like it, were I to pay for it, I would demand, and insist on a full measure, instead of a half, quarter, or less at the freak of the vendor, Captain Edwin. I have also been asked bow to account for majority in favor of the loan. That is easy enough ; it consisted cf tenants, agents, and top-storey lodgers, edged on by other persons, of the dot ratepaying gentry, who are on the free list, but expect to pocket something during so largo an expenditure. You could count on the fingers of one hand all the largo proprietors who voted for the loan, and these were specially interested. The owner of a cottage in a back street who has been paying rates for the Gladstone road loan during the last quarter of a century, will now have a show to continue to do so for the remainder of his life. —I am, etc., A. Y. Ross.