The Manchester City Council has taken a step, not perhaps
unadvisable in itself, which will form a decidedly evil precedent. The Ship Canal Company has so far done its. work very well, and will no doubt greatly benefit the trade of the city; but, according to the Mayor of Manchester, it• has exhausted its money and its credit, and has two years' more work to do without any funds to do it with. The Council, therefore, proposes to lend the Company three millions, sterling, the ratepayers taking debentures which count after the debentures of the present holders. The vote was passed on the proposal of the Mayor, and is, we suppose, justifiable in so extreme a case ; but it offers a plea for jobberies hereafter on a quite colossal scale, any Company which can pledge a, body of citizens deep enough having an excuse for asking
ratepayers' aid. A city might be ruined in that way very easily by city improvements. The vote is to be confirmed by Parlia- ment, and we trust that in the necessary Act it will be pro- vided that, in the event of final loss, the city shall be a privileged creditor, to be paid in full before the shareholders. Otherwise we shall some day find a Council in which every Councillor is a shareholder, say, in a Building Company, lending citizens' money to that Company, and leaving the citizens to rank as the last creditors. We do not like the precedent at all.
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