Days of future past

Today there is on-going debate in Hamilton over rates.

Disagreements between councillors regarding the state of city finances, the desirability of developments such as the Waikato Regional Theatre and – especially – the overall size of the rates increase have dominated headlines.

110 years ago similar issues played out in Cambridge.

In early June, 1908 the Cambridge Ratepayers Association met and celebrated something of a victory.

The executive committee was proud to inform the membership that a report compiled by the association detailing borough finances, one delivered to every household in town, had proven influential.

The concerns raised in this document as well as other, direct lobbying, had seen the defeat of three loans, each related to a particular project: a new City Hall, 3500 pounds, proposed swimming baths,

350 pounds and targeted footpaths at the outer reaches of the borough, 500 pounds.

Cambridge’s mayor had taken a dim view of the report, which was in effect a shadow balance sheet, stating that ‘‘the accounts were ‘cooked’ abominably’’ and that ‘‘the whole thing was the most sickening he ever saw’’.

However, the association felt vindicated, noting that borough debt had blown out to almost 3000 pounds, double that of the previous year, making a mockery of the mayor’s assertion that council initiatives would ‘‘bring in a surplus’’.

Further criticisms were voiced regarding the manner in which sundry different loans had been conflated in the official accounts, making it difficult to ascertain in which areas the most money was being lost.

The council’s biggest failing was that it had spent nothing on improving Cambridge’s streets.

There was even more vitriol in the local body affairs of nearby Piako, where the chairman of the county council, Mr T. Gavin, was at loggerheads with a certain councillor, Mr T. McGloin.

Of McGloin, Gavin observed, ‘‘he assures me is a specialist in lunacy . . . I tell you sir, he is like a barrel organ.

What he knows is all in his ‘innards’ and you have only to turn the handle that works the wind bag, and out it comes, roads, bridges, drains, metal, lunacy, and so-and-so and so-and-so’’.