The Evening Star. DUNEDIN, WEDNESDAY, JAN. 10, 1866.

Evening Star, Volume III, Issue 836, 10 January 1866, Page 2

The Evening Star. DUNEDIN, WEDNESDAY, JAN. 10, 1866.

The recent action of the Provincial Council in passing the “ Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1865, Amendment Bill ” has virtually removed from the ratepayers of Dunedin the millstone which hung round their necks in the shajic of the L 35,000 loan, and appears to us to offer a favorable opportunity for directing attention to the necessity which exists for a system of drainage for the city being immediately prosecuted. It will be remembered that during the past session a resolution was adopted by the Council negativing the proposition to convert the loan we have referred to into a grant, but affirming the desirability of the Corporation being allowed ten years before repayment of the loan, with interest, was demanded. So long as this incubus existed the Corporation might fairly be excused from entering into works of the magnitude which those of sewerage and drainage would inevitably assume, but now that it has been released from a liability which not only threatened its future revenue, but also crippled its ability to borrow money, there can hardly be a reason why the sanitary reform so much needed by us should not be under - taken without any further delay. The first part of clause IX. of the ordinance •declares that: — 4 ‘ So soon as eight muni- “ cipalities shall have incorporated under tc provisions of this ordinance, all debts .« an d interest on the same, due by the “ Corporation of the city of Dunedin, and “ by the Town Board of Port Chalmers, “ respectively, to the Provincial Govern- « ment of Otago, shall be released, and the ‘‘ Superintendent of Otago snail immedi--14 ately thereafter deliver up to be can- “ celled ail bonds and other securities 44 which he may hold on account of such m debts, and the same shall be cancelled.” That the ordinance will meet the views the country, and be followed by the

speedy formation of the requisite number of municipalities we have no doubt. The country districts have too long been desirous of, and entitled to, the subsidy for promoting their improvement which the Ordinance awards them, and we are sanguine that few months will elapse before the whole of the amount voted for the purpose wdl be applied for. We have only to glance at the great success of similar corporations in Victoria to ascertain to what extent the surface of the country can be improved by means of local governments. As regards the drainage of Dunedin, some people possess the idea that an enormous sum will be required to do the thing efficiently. We have heart! it surmised by people who ought to have known better, that a million would have be expended for the purpose, and the most moderate guess ever essayed in our hearing was £IOO,OOO. Why the colossal sewerage works which are now being carried out in London are not expected to cost more than five millions at the outside ; and to compare Dunedin to London is like comparing a pigmy to a giant —the whole city and suburbs would not furnish out a moderate-sized parish in that huge metropolis. The real fact is, that the sewerage of Dunedin can be carried out for a sum which, considering the wealth of the city, is not at all formidable, and the loan now about to be converted into a grant will fully cover it. It is not as though we had to embark in any new and strange undertaking, in dealing with which everything must be left to conjecture. The thing has been done over and over again in and the cost of the works for the drainage of any given locality can be calculated with a close approximation to fact. It has been reckoned that between the years 1850 and 1862, 178 English cities and towns borrowed money to the extent of nearly four millions for the construction of sewerage works; and it is stated by an engineer whose calculations may be relied upon, that the cost of main sewers may be taken at an average of £1 per head of the population of the place in which they are executed- And this assertion is amply borne out by the evidence of statistics In Birmingham, 120 miles of sewerage was constructed at a cost of £150,000; and Carlisle carried out a system of sewerage at an expense of £23,000, or 17s 8d per head of the population. A careful analysis of the expenditure on sewerage works in nine other English towns —having an aggregate population of 116,000 persons, living in 18,800 houses—showed that tie average cost of the works was £3 18s Sd per house, or 12s 9d per head of the pojulation. If we make a liberal allowance br the enhanced cost of labor and materiils in this colony, and fix our average at 12 per head of our population, the expenseof underground drainage for Dunedin proper would be something considerably timer £30,000. It is clear, therefore, that he people of Dunedin need not hesitateto undertake this most necessary work fmn any fear of the expense.