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Evening Star, Issue 3270, 13 August 1873, Page 2

How it is we cannot tell, but the Colony seems to have very mistaken notions of the true position of affairs between the Corporation of Dunedin and the Waterworks Company. The New Zealand Herald, for instance, contains the following garbled statement:

Mr Bathgate, the present Minister of Justice, aided by Mr Reynolds, also one of the present Ministry, passed the Bill, with these clauses, through the House. After years of struggling and difficulty, of quarrels with the

Provincial Government, with its .engineer, and with the Corporation, the company (it last begins to pay, and its shares begin to change hands at a high premium. Then the Corporation steps in and wishes to buy, but will not give the market price. The company refuse to take loss, so the Corporation, not to be beaten, have just got up a petition to the General Assembly, coolly asking them to repeal this clause. More astounding yet, the active promoters and supporters of the petition are Messrs Bathgate and Reynolds, who prefer apparently a fleeting popularity among _ those who are fo profit by this act of repudiation, to the resjiect of those who hold that private interests should be sacred when resting on a deliberate Act of the Assembly, dho pretext of the petition is that the waterworks do not supply the town satisfactorily > but it is strange the promoters only discovered this after negotifcions to purchase had failed. Wo hope the Assembly will look very keenly into this attempt to induce it to repeal an Act, on the good faith of which the property of a number of people has been honestly invested. If lightly done, or without reasons of the most convincing or undeniable character, a blow Avill be struck at the good faitli of the Colony from which it will not readily recover.

Whence this precious morsel of information was derived we cannot tell, but

for the information of the Herald, and we trust that journal will see the propriety of retracting its statement, if there be an attempt at repudiation it is not on the part of the Dunedin Corporation, but of the Company. The offer of the Corporation was most liberal: it was accepted by the Water Company, and but for the oversight in the term of redemption of the debentures the bargain must be considered as having been closed. We are of opinion that none would have gained so much by the transaction as the shareholders in the Water Company, and that however highly indebted Dunedin may be to them for the boon conferred of a supply of water, they have shut themselves off from all further consideration through taking advantage of an error to get rid of a contract.