The Evening Star FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 1870

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2154, 1 April 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 1870

Notwithstanding the great improvement that has been made in Dunedin during the last few years, there is necessity for constant watchfulness over its sanitary condition. This is pressed upon attention from time to time by cases which come before the Mayor’s Court. Were it not for the services of the Inspector of Nuisances, in many parts of the town there would be accumulations of filth or drainings from cesspools that would poison the air and induce disease. The tines in many cases fall hardly upon those who have to pay them, although it cannot be said that they are unjust. Society must be protected from evils that carelessness or self-interest has at times a tendency to bring upon it. Apart from the morally degrading effects of filth, public health is too valuable to be lightly treated, and the surprise is that regard for personal safety does not invariably induce the very precautions that the City Regulations enforce. It is, however, a singular instance of want of foresight in those who originally laid out the plan of the City that no such idea as the drainage of property seems to have been entertained. Had there been no experience of its necessity at Home, there might have been some excuse. But public attention had been called to it centuries before New Zealand was colonised, and yet the difficulty is to be got over, how one man shall drain his property in Dunedin without becoming liable to be sued for damages done to his neighbor’s land. Tenants are frequently put to considerable inconvenience through the neglect of landlords, and have at least to be subjected to loss of time and the annoyance and expense of attending Court on account of their civic sins. It may truly be replied that this might easily be avoided by their taking care to see that premises are in good order before entering into occupation of them, and that the Court has nothing to do with the arrangement between a landlord and his tenant. So far as society is concerned what is required is prevention of nuisance, and as the question of liability lies between landlord and tenant, the latter must abide by the consequences, bad or good, of arrangements voluntarily or knowingly entered upon. These individual inconveniences are the outward signs of the evil, and point to the necessity for a cure. It is singular how very apathetic we in Dunedin are so long as all goes right. When the death rate is low and there is no sign of any epidemic the tines and penalties at the police courts attract no attention. It seems not to be thought that they are indices pointing to the necessity for sanitary measures. The waters of the Bay may become poisoned, the Bay itself may gradually silt up —the consequences upon human health and life are not perceived, nor even conceived. At present the effect may be. small, but it is not the less certain. It is a singular feature of the human mind that it becomes so familiarised with the presence of evil as to tolerate it and sometimes to consider it unavoidable. It is only on this "round that we can account for the O want of interest taken in the drainage question. One would almost imagine the people of Dunedin held fatalistic doctrines, and adopted the dogma, What is to lie must be ; so little attention do they give to it. But the time will come when their attention will be forced to it, and the use of means will be found necessary to guard against disease induced by insufficient drainage. The duty of our City Council is to anticipate this time, and by well-devised arrangements to avoid the hasty, expensive, and probably ill-considered schemes that, in the immediate presence of danger, are sure to be adopted. In view of the absolute necessity for deciding on a drainage scheme, a thorough investigation of the difficulties, legal, social, and physical, should be made. We are aware that plans of drainage, now lost sight of, have been proposed. Since then, circumstances have much changed. The men who were in office have changed, the state of the City has changed, and the work is to do over again. This is one of the disadvantages of elective legislation. Its operation is fitful, and its investigations superficial. On such a question as drainage, which, for its success, depends in a great measure upon unity of design prosecuted through a long period, the members of the Council have scarcely time to master its details before they have to resign their seats to others, who require, in their turn, to be educated, It has struck us, in view of this difficulty, that the appointment of a drainage trust, aftor the manner of a dock or harbor trust, would be the best mode of dealing with it. Under such a body,

annual appropriations might be made, and the drainage of the City proceeded with as revenue could be spared, for it is certain that a thorough system would cost too much to permit its being carried out at once. There may be objections to such a plan that do not present themselves at present. At any rate something must be done, and that before long.