St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-11-27
THOSE DEBENTURES.

The Pioneer Press climbs down from its
former elevated support of the Ontario plan
and now proposes as a compromise to leave
with the city government the discretionary
power to enforce that or any other plan that
our city fathers may think best to adopt.
This is betrayal of weakness on the part
of our contemporary which evidently results
from a lack of faith in the entire efficiency
of the Ontario system for making local I'M
movements. While the Pioneer Press, in
manner apparently satisfactory to itself, dis
poses of some of the objections which had
been urged against adopting the Ontario
plan. it fails to refer to the most serious OBJ
lection which rises in the pathway OF the
success of this imported. scheme for
making local improvements. We mean
that feature which exposes the city
to the mercy of wildcat specula-
tors who would have no other object
in view than to make money at the expense
of the city's credit. The folly of attempt
ing to carry these local improvement deben-
lures on par with the regular city bonds
las already been discussed. These deben-
lures will be nothing more nor less than
certificates of Indebtedness to be paid when
the amount named in them has been col
lected from a third party. The only Sc
curitv that the holder of them would have
would be lien on the specific property for
whose benefit the improvement was made.
If there should be any irregularity in the
manner of making the assessment. or any
other technical ground upon which the
property holder could avoid the payment of
the assessment against him, then the holder
of the debenture would have no security for
its payment 1t is not reasonable to sup
nose that paper of this kind would have the
same market or commercial value that a
city bond would possess. The consequence
would be the formation of all sorts of Wild
cat combinations to speculate in these de-
bentureS They would have a fuctuating
value which would necessarily expose
them to this danger. It is useless to say
that if they were deprecated in
value the credit of St. Paul would
not suffer by it. They would be
known in the market as St. Paul deben-
lures. and the association of the city's name
with the certificates would Of itself involve
the civ crPQlT. AS all IlluSIIdllOU III pOllt,
when tile state of Virginia funded two
thirds of its ante bellum debt it issued to
its creditors a certificate OF Indebtedness for
the remaining one-third, to be paid after
a settlement with West Virginia. and
these almost worthless certificates are
quoted to-day in the stock markets
as West Virginia certificates" aud
West Virginia has TO bear all the
odium of their deprecated value, not
withstandng the state is not even so much
as responsible for their having been issued
If these local improvement debentures are
deprecated in value, and they are sure to
be under Wild cat manipulation, the city Of
st. Paul will suffer the consequences by
having its credit deprecated in equal pro-
portion This is matter of too serious re-
suits to be rushed through without considera-
ton, and the GLOBE insists upon it that haste
shall be made slowly in adopting the
Ontaria plan or in making any changes re-
lating to our local improvement system.