| Show THE JIAYOlld ARGUMENT The mayors argument is not a pronounced pro-nounced success It is intended to justify tile trebling of tho ordinary expenses of the city on the ground that the extraordinary extraordin-ary expenses hate simply kept pace with those of the quarter preceeding the inauguration inau-guration of the Liberal government It justifies the expenditure of amillion of dollars last year on the plEa thatifthe rata of expenditure of the preceding three months when the main sewei was put in at a cost of 7091940 had kept up at the rate at which it was then preceding the expenditure of the city government in other hands would have been as great as it has been under Liberal administration The objection to this point is that people had no idea when they voted for sewerage that they thereafter pledged themselves to a perpetual tax as great as tho sower tax had been The mayor seems to doubt as well ho might whether the present council has actually expended the surplus of a quarter of a million on hand at the beginning of their term of office and says If we as sumo that we uavo expended the entire sum of 26332097 of extra revenue etc The obvious comment upon which is that i if the money hasnt been expended then where is it The mayor then shows that tho city can obtain a supply of water by the expenditure expendi-ture of sums aggregating according to his estimate some 30000 This is indeed refreshing re-freshing The apology for tho street improvements is hardly worth quotation or comment Tho mayor notes with some satisfaction that the miles of waterpipe laidjluring the year makean addition of over CO per cent to the whole amount laid prior to January 1 1SOO As every cent d moreof this expense ex-pense is borne by property owners through special taxes the wonder is that the city was satisfied with laying so few of them With practically no increase in the water supply and a 60 per cent increase in the number of miles of mains laid we have a pair of facts that appear to fit very inhar i moniouslv The finances of the police department are not given but the sewer department makes a good showing in expenditures reaching 15384399 while the expenses of the lire department also loom up The argument to show how wisely the city has expended 10000 on plans for the city and county building somewhat weak but has tho distinction of being unsupported unsup-ported by comparisons with the quarter preceding etc We shall review the items more at length in the near future |
