THE MAITLAND STREET MEMORIAL.

Evening Star, Issue 3367, 4 December 1873, Page 2

THE MAITLAND STREET MEMORIAL.

To the Editor, Sib, —Will you allow me the privilege of referring through your columns, to' the matter of the Maitland street memorial, as I deem it a matter which requires ventilation, and which I gather from remarks in a late issue of the Sr a it, the Corporation will not trouble themselves to inquire into—“leaving it to right itself." However is to be done, except at the expense of justice, I cannot determine. The memorial, while stating the case pretty clearly, does not touch on a tithe of all that might be advanced, nor can lat present do sa What I want to draw attention to, however, is this. The memoi ialists state either what is true or untrue j, if what justice would require them to yield up to the Corporation of Uynedia, say three feet of the frontage which was sold to them by the Provincial Government, for the purpose of giving it away to other citizensfor it amounts to this, as of course the ground taken from th«m is to make up alleged deficiencies found to exist in other blocks. Would it not be quite as just to allow the deficiencies, if any, to remain where discovered, especially as the ci'own grants have this proviso more or less * it would not appear as if it would suit oa any terms other than those sought to be, what L conceive unjustly enforced. Why I should be compelled to take less, so that another should have more, perhaps soms Councillor can explain,

I have said either jwhafc was stated is true or untrue, and I should like to know what steps were taken by the Corporation to find out the truth or otherwise of what was stated. I may say that I signed the memorial, being one of th« unfortunates, and I cannot discover that any Councillor, other than Mr Frosser, has taken the troubb to satisfy himself by inquiring of any of thoac most able to atFord information, j Whether the request preferred by the memorialists was a reasonable and a just | one, and how the decision o)iiM be anived at without this inquiry, J leave the Coun cillors to say. It was said iu your columns that the petitioners were not interfered witiu Now this is not correct, as on the occasion of the kerbing and channelling of a portion of Maitland street it was sought to put the k>rb down some three feet nearer tlie buildings than the line which formerly obtained ; and after some remon-tran.ee from a number of the parties whom the encroachment did most seriously affect, the plan was modified by the line being again' shifted some twenty inches farther'o>;t; and the parties to the memorial presented on that occasion were informed that although the Council ha d al lowed the footpath" to be kept for the present at some nine feet, they reserved to themselves the right to shift us and the line when they chose, so that on that occasion one foot or thereabout was actually taken by the Corporation, aid if the residents, whom the alteration was so materially to eifeet, had quie.lv submitted, the footpaths would now have been, say seven feet, or the buildings would have been shifted. In asking for compensation, the memorial ists want only justice, and not favor, and they believe t'hao if tnc Councillors would only hear both hides from those able to supply the information, compensation wonld'be granted. This knowledge they may easily obtain, as some of the memorialists have thoroughly considered the matter before bringing it under the notice of the Councillors.—l am, &c, Fair Field. Dunedin, Dec 3, 1873.