A DUNEDIN OPINION.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11491, 26 January 1903, Page 8

A DUNEDIN OPINION.

(special to "the thess.") DUNEDIN, January 23. " Greater Chriatchurcli " is the "subject of a leading article in the "Star," which expresses the hope that Sydenham will endorse the action of St. Albans and Linwood, so that statutory measures may at cmoe be adopted to carry out this great reform. The writer remarks:—"Judging: from the proceedings at the public meeting at the Canterbury Hall, a vast preponderance of public opinion in the city and suburbs is distinctly in favour of amalgamation on the grounds of efficiency and eccnomy in the administration of local gpvernment, and it is evidently universally realised that under the present divided control and plural management, necessary public works, such as drainage, water supply, lighting, and fire prevention, cannot be carried out in a satisfactory and comprehensive -manner. It is especially notable from the report of the meeting that the arguments in favour of amalgamation were advanced almost exclusively by suburban resident*?, the impression apparently being that the proposed reform would be distinctly in their favour, whilst the whole community would be immensely better off under municipal unification. If need hardly be pointed out that the arguments in favour of Greater Christchurch are intensified in the case of Dunedin, where the number of suburban municipalities contiguous to the city is so much greater, and the consequent" inconveniences and waste of power and money have been so disastrously in evidence during a course of years."