THE CORPORATION AND THE WATERWORKS COMPANY.

Evening Star, Issue 3265, 7 August 1873, Page 2

THE CORPORATION AND THE WATERWORKS COMPANY.

The “statement” of the Directors of the Water Company, in answer to the petitions of the City Council and a thousand citizens, asking that the company’s compulsory rating powers may be taken away, comprises twenty.-oue pages of an octavo pamphlet. It sets out that the petitions from the Council and citizens are based upon “ a total misrepresentation of facts,” and prose.edu ; - In the said petition it is alleged that “ the company, as undertaken, were bound to provide and keep in the pipes to be laid down a supply of pure and wholesome water, sufficient for the domestic use of all the inhabitants of the town. That although the said company has been incorporated for nearly nine years, it have failed to supply a large portion of the City with water, and tljeir works are inadequate for the supply of the upper portions of the City, to the great detriment of the inhabitants jn a sanitary point of view, as well as loss on the opcasiou of a fire.” On the contrary, the City is almost wholly supplied, as will he seen by the accompanying map, in which the streets colored blue show that portion of the City in which pipes are laid and water supplied. These colored red show the infinitesimal portion about the level of the reservoir, which can be supplied by further extension of the works when required, but from the inhabitants of which no complaint has been made to the company. Those streets colored yellow show the recent reclamations from the harbor, or that portion of the City unbuilt upon, but which can be supplied, immediately when required. The accompanying report of the company’s engineer is referred to as reliable evidence on this subject. So far from the supply of water being insufficient, it is used for manufacturing purposes, and a« a motive power for machinery, and arrangements have been recently made with the General Government to supply the Immigration Barracks at Cavcnham, a distance of two miles from the centre of the City. Tim allegation that the company hkve fu'ifcd to supply pure and wholemm water is equally without foundation’, a sample haying been recently analysed fry Professor Black at the request of the Corporation. It is understood that tpe Professor a report is highly favorable, and that the water is of a very pure and wholesome quality. Mention is then made that the company since its commencement has supplied water free fdr watering the streets, and “ various other public purposes that the supply for fires has always been kbuadfpt and effective, whereby the number and extejtf of fires

are been greatly reduced ; the rates of in* urance also greatly reduced ; and Dunedin, from being a City in which there were most disastrous tires, has become the safest in the Colony.” The pamphlet then says : It is not a fact that the company refused to sell to the Corporation. At one time the company were most anxious that the Corporation should take over the works at cost price, but as the company was then in difficulties the Corporation refused to entertain the proposal—apparently with the hope that those difficulties would necessitate the company being broken up, and its works placed in the market. The recent negotiations for sale fell through from the Corporation’s inability to complete the bargain which they had made. . . _. Being _ the nature, extent, and difficulty of its operations, the company has not received so much in the form of guaranteed money as might have been expected; and in this respect presents a marked contrast to the Port Chalmers Railway Company, which has been paid the interest guaranteed to it from the commencement of the undertaking. The company has paid dividends to its shareholders for the last eighteen months without assistance from the Government, and in future no assistance will be required. The company’s debentures and shares have been largely availed of for investment of trust funds for widows and orphans, and therefore any alteration which would lessen its security would materially affect public confidence. Grave doubts are expressed by many of the citizens whether the business would be better conducted by a body elected for semi-political purposes, than by a body of directors elected for that business alone. It is fearlessly asserted by the directors of the company that no necessity whatever exists for any new works for the supply of the City with water, and that the petition of citizens and ratepayers has been got up by the Corporation solely with a view to reduce the value of the company property, and thereby compel the company to sell to the Corporation and at their own terms.