The Evening Star FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 2819, 1 March 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1872.

Two subjects of great importance cropped up at the meeting of the City Council yesterday —the cesspool nuisance and the Castle street swamp. They, with some passing events, point to the public tolerance of evils_ whenever a tax on private property is concerned. It is a pity that the Corporation or the Government have not legally the power to compel owners of swamps to contribute towards rendering them valuable for building ground, just because some ten, fifteen, or twenty years ago they were bought for the price of an old song of some government ignorant enough to part with conti ol over them. The owners, as a matter ot course,

claim all the rights accorded to them by the stringent laws relating to landed property. As an act of grace they can wive permission to the Government to fill up the swamps; or if they are inclined to bo very obstinate they can make a stand, and say you shall pay ns for allowing them to be filled up. Nothing short of a special Act of Parliament would give the City Council or the Provincial Government i control over them. For our own part wo should advocate strongly such an addition to the Municipal powers as would enable the Corporation to uproot a nuisance at the owner’s cost. It is intolerable that practically one or two men should have it in their power through sheer cupidity, to doom numbers of their fellows to disease or death : yet such is practically the result of their obstructiveness. We do no care to enquire the names of the men who arc standing in the way of this great improvement. Mr Barnes characterised their conduct as “ mean.” He is right. It is “mean,” and worse than “ mean:” it is wicked. Were they asked to put their hands in their pockets for the benefit of others, they might be allowed, like other men, to consult their ledgers and see whether, consistently with their duty to their creditors and their families, they would be justified in contributing. But so far from that being the case, they are asked to contribute a portion of the cost of adding immeasurably to the value of their own property. The suggestion of the Corporation is that the swamps shall be filled up partly or mainly at the public expense. The objection of the Government is that, by acceding to the proposal, they will be enriching individuals at the public cost: and that being the case, in all fairness they ought to bear a larger share of the expense. We quite agree with the Government, that as a rule, in the absence of legal power to compel owners to pay, their property should remain unimproved. But there are exceptions to that rule, and we think this is one. There are higher considerations than whether a few hundreds will go into the pockets of men who without exercise of their brains or hands, benefit by accident. One of these considerations is the present danger to public health, and the chance that if we wait to remove the nuisance until power is obtained to tax the owners of the swamp land, many valuable lives may fall victims to fever or disease, induced by noxious exhalations. It is a pity that such mean spirited speculators in the profit to be made out of human self-pro-tection, cannot be prosecuted for manslaughter, where death results from their conduct, just because no law can be made to meet their case through the impossibility of knowing whether the poison was prepared in A. B.’s swamp or D. C.’s cesspool. Yet when they oppose improvement through not contributing to their own profit, and one dies in consequence, they are as guilty, morally, as those who f>oison a child in order to swindle a burying club. We believe the cesspool nuisance the worst evil of the two. Not only is each such place a pest when neglected, but it pollutes the ground and the water in its neighborhood; and the water carries the poison with it, and diffuses it in its course. With this the Corporation can deal. We do not know that much if anything more than has often been said can be said to bring the subject home to every man’s conscience of the duty of attending strictly to sanitary arrangements in constructing a house or managing a household. Were an enemy’s ship oft’ the Ocean Beach, with cannon bristling in her sides ready to open fire on Dunedin, nobody could mistake the presence of danger and the necessity for taking measures for public safety. But where one life would be sacrificed through such an attack, fifty fall annually through the attacks of enemies unseen, unfclt, born, nurtured, and matured in our very midst. By filling up the swamps a few pounds might be put into the pockets of undeserving men, but that would be as nothing compared with the advantages to public health, and consequent public saving. We are not surprised that the Government have taken the ground of refusal stated by the Mayor, but we think if the matter were pressed upon them, they would see the propriety of withdrawing the objection.