H. Parks and Road Ornamentation.
This item of cost would not be incurred until the undertaking was in a thoroughly sound financial condition, and the park space for a considerable period might be a source of revenue as agricultural land. Further, much of the park space would probably be left in a state of nature. Forty acres of this park space is road ornamentation, but the planting of trees and shrubs would not entail great expense. Again, a considerable part of the area would be reserved for cricket-fields, lawn-tennis courts, and other playgrounds, and the clubs using public grounds might perhaps be called upon to contribute to the expense of keeping these in order, as is customary elsewhere.
I. Sewage.
All that need be said on this subject has been said in Chap. i., page [25], and Chap. ii., page [32].
K. Interest.
The money to construct the public works with which we have been dealing is supposed to be borrowed at 4½ per cent. The question here arises—a question partly dealt with in [Chap. iv.]—what is the security for those who lend money on the “B” debentures?
My answer is three-fold.
(1) Those who advance money to effect any improvements on land have a security the safety of which is in reality largely determined by the effectiveness with which the money so advanced is spent; and, applying this truism, I venture to say that, for effectiveness of expenditure, no money which the investing public has been for many years asked to subscribe for improvements of a like nature has an equal security, whether it be measured by miles of road, acres of park, or numbers of school children well provided for.
(2) Those who advance money to effect improvements on land have a security the safety of which is largely determined by the consideration, aye or no, are other and yet more valuable works to be simultaneously carried out by others at their own expense, which other works are to become a security in respect of the first-mentioned advance; and, applying this second truism, I say that, as the money for effecting the public improvements here described would only be asked for as and when other improvements—factories, houses, shops, etc. (costing far more money than the public works necessary at any given period)—were about to be built or were in process of building, the quality of the security would be a very high one.
(3) It is difficult to name a better security than that offered when money is to be expended in converting an agricultural estate into an urban, and this of the very best known type.