DRIANAGE OF CHRISTCHURCH.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 127, 27 October 1874, Page 4

DRIANAGE OF CHRISTCHURCH.

The following is the substance of Dr Turnbull’s remarks on the subject of the drainage of Christchurch, made when the deputation waited on the Government on Wednesday last : Dr Turnbull said—l have to begin the somewhat difficult task of assorting the claims of Christchurch by the pleasant one of conveying to your Honor and your Executive the hearty thanks of the City Council for the warm interest you have always shewn in the welfare of the city, and for the exertions you made at last meeting of Provincial Council. The object of the deputation is to ask your Honor to call a meeting of the Provincial Council at an early date, so that the City Council may know the position Christchurch is to occupy in the future financial affairs of the province. We of course all know that the Council does not meet until March 31st. This date necessitates that not only the hot season of 1875 will pass without much being done, but that the hot season of 1876 may come without any material improvement in our sanitary condition. We therefore ask to be placed in some position of certainty as soon as possible. It no doubt will involve trouble to members of Council, but the question is one of the gravest importance to this town. The Registrar-General of Deaths places Christchurch at the head of all the towns of the Colony, as the most unhealthy. This is an unenviable position to occupy, but to us it is worse even than the returns indicate. The actual mortality is not a just indication of the amount of sickness. We all know from experience that a large amount of sickness always prevails in Christchurch, particularly in the hot season. This is caused by defective drainage, and imperfect general sanitary arrangements. All this odium and suffering are the more vexatious because they can be got rid of quite. The whole thing is capable of being stamped out. It is simply a question of money. The removal of the causes of illness and death will involve the expenditure of a large sum. The City Council know it to be impossible to grapple the question singlehanded. It is willing to borrow the amount allowed (£35,000) and to ask the ratepayers to pay the interest. The City Council now come to the Government to ask for help in obtaining from the Provincial Council the grant of a sum sufficient to enable the city to carry out its drainage works. It must not, however, be thought we come as absolute beggars. We corneas representatives of a town having just claims to a share of the provincial revenue. It is those claims, as well as our defective sanitary condition, which I have to bring before the Government, We know that grants in aid is a recognised principle of the Provincial Council in the distri-

bution of its funds. If a district labours under any unusual obstacle to its development, the Council grants special assistance to that district. The Provincial Council in its treatment of mnnicb alities ignores this sound principle of government. The moment a town forms itself into a municipality the Provincial Council at once ignores its exisience. So long as a town forms part of a road board it has a claim to a share of the annual subsidy of the road board ; but once a municipality, all the municipalities occupy this peculiar posi tion. Geographically, they are within and a part of the province, but financially they are as much outside as any town in Auckland. All this is wrong. It is a blunder. I address myself now to the claims of Christchurch to a considerable subsidy from provincial funds. The special difficulty under which this town labors is sickness. The removal of the cause of this illness is beyond the means of the ratepayers. This town, as the capital of the province, is more liable to disease than any other district. The mere collection in a small space of houses and people, is of course a great source of illness; but at the present time, the constantly recurring introduction of large shiploads of immigrants for provincial purposes, is a most fruitful cause of the origin and spread of fever. Here, I cannot avoid saying the people do not know how much they are indebted to your Honor and your Executive for a perpetual vigilance over this source of disease in the town. You have suppressed the illnesses as they arrived on board ship, and kept a close watch over those numerous cases beginning on shore. I am quite satisfied so far as great care on your part goes we will not suffer, but even with that care we have large additions to our sickness from imported sickness. As I said before, the mere mortality does not indicate truly the extent of the sickness. We all know how much prevails. Common humanity therefore should prompt a wealthy province to remove this foul blot from its capital ; should make members zealous to remove suffering and death from among us. Common humanity would indeed be a sufficient reason if members of Council thought over the matter as men and not as politicians. As politicians they strike out of the case arguments based upon sentiment, and indeed I am afraid they strike out also arguments based upon common prudence. I do not indeed think it prudent that governing bodies, such as our Provincial Council, should ignore the claims and difficulties of the large centres of population. The long unsettled claims of Christchurch in the matter of the reserves for the town, sold and paid into the Provincial Treasury, must stand over for future adjustment. The claims of Christchurch on the land fund can hardly rest upon positive right, as the city quite recognises the wisdom of the policy which endeavours to return the money to the districts yielding it, but we claim a right to rank in the allocation of that fund with adjoining Road Boards, There are certain Road Boards adjoining Christchurch, practically in the same position so far as adding to the land revenue is concerned. Christchurch has no waste lands for sale, and those Road Boards are much in the same position. Yet, in spite of this, Road Boards receive an annual subsidy, but not so Christchurch. I do not for for a moment wish to deprive those Boards of their subsidy. I wish rather that Christchurch should occupy a somewhat similar position. Those Road Boards do not pretend to contribute now to the revenue. They rest upon what they did in the past. Let me turn to the past. I there find these Boards have already received pound for pound all the money they ever paid into the Treasury. I am quite aware this statement may be disputed, on the ground that the Boards were only called into existence in 1866, bat when we add to the money given to the Road Boards since 1866 the money spent in each district prior to that date, my statement will be found correct. For instance, take the Riccarton district. The total area of that district is 11,000 acres ; the quantity sold is 9946 acres 3 roods ; the money paid into the Treasury is £19,893 10s; the money spent on this road district prior to 1866 £5463 4s 3d ; and the amount paid to the Road Board since 1866 is £14,300 0s Bd. Making a total expended in that road district of £19,763 4s lid, or a sum equal to the amount paid into the treasury less £l2B 6s Id. This pound for pound repayment is the same in the Heathcote, Avon, and other Road Boards. The logical conclusion from this enquiry is, that if Road Boards have received all they have ever paid in, and still are to get annual subsidies, then, why not Christchurch, I am quite aware that Road Boards repudiate all expenditure in their districts prior to 1866, the period of their formation, and thus materially diminish the amounts they have received. This repudiation may indeed, for anything I know, be quite reasonable, but your Honor will see the propriety of dating monies given to the towns also from 1866. It would be a laughable farce if every halfpenny expended in the towns were to be told up against them, from the first days of the province, and and the Road Boards to start with a clear sheet at 1866. The towns are quite willing to enter into a comparison with the districts of monies received, but all must commence from the same date, 1850 or 1866. If the latter, Christchurch would be in the position of having received absolutely nothing up to May, 1873. It is a peculiarity also of representatives of road districts that they claim an annual subsidy for the maintenance of main roads, coupled with a thorough forgetfulness that Christchurch has had to maintain the main roads of the town for upwards of ten years without a single annual subsidy. I bring these facts before your Honor to show that no principle runs through the allocation of the funds of the province. An enormous country majority has, year after year, ignored the just claim of the towns to rank on a position of equality with the districts. The towns have been left to struggle on under heavy rates, Christchurch alone raising close upon double the amount of rates raised by the eight surrounding Road Boards put together. It may be thought that I am anxious to deal as harshly with the adjoining districts as the Council has dealt with the towns. This is not the case. I will show presently how I think they ought to be dealt with. I think it would be far better for the settled Road Boards to draw their annual subsidy from the same source as the towns. The revenue of the province is not, of course, all drawn from the land fund. There is a sum received from the General Government called a “ capitation grant.” This capitation allowance comes from the Customs revenue, and is 15s ahead. I take the revenue received ly the province from the General Government, namely, the capitation grant.

The capitation allowance is 15s ahead, so that Canterbury receives £46,396 10s. This sum is never actually received by the Provincial Treasury, but it is employed by the General Government to pay the interest upon Canterbury provincial railway loans. I wish to call your Honor’s special attention to this state of things, and to correct me if I am wrong. We have a system of railways laid down at great cost, and debt incurred for their construction, for the express purpose of facilitating the transit of produce for opening up country for settlement, and for raising revenue, by encouraging the sale of waste lands. Yet the Provincial Council compels the interest of this great railway debt to be paid by whom or what—by taxes upon population—namely, the Customs revenue. This is a very grave injustice of many years standing. The interest of the railway loans should unquestionably be paid out of land revenue, and this capitation grant derived from the Customs should be distributed among the towns and districts, according to population, for the furtherance of local works. It is for the wrong appropriation of this fund for many years that the City Council now asks you to secure a considerable subsidy for the drainage of the town. For many years the province has been credited with large sums out of the Customs revenue by the General Government, Year by year those large sums have been made to pay interest of railway loans, thus setting free equally large suras of the land revenue which ought to have paid the interest. The Provincial Council has therefore appropriated annually something like £45,000, raised by taxes upon the people, given it to the country districts, and denied to the towns a I single half-penny of contribution from the proceeds of its own taxation. What kind of justice can we call it which compels the people of the province, rich and poor alike, to pay the interest of our railway loans, when at one sitting of Provincial Council something over £1,300,000 were voted from the land revenues ; a revenue which ought in common sense, and in common fairness, to bear the burden of its its own improvement and its own existence, namely, the payment of the interest upon railway loans. I will endeavor now to show your Honor what would be the result if this capitation grant, raised from the people through the Customs revenue, were distributed according to population, or, what is a fairer way of putting the matter, if land revenue were made to return to the districts in which it was raised, and the revenue from population were also made to go back to each d'strict according to population. As I said before, the capitation grant from Customs to this Province is £46,396 10s, Now take the

This calculation is, of course, based upon the Census or night population of each town. The day population is something very much above this amount. Now. for upwards of ten years Christchurch has been paying to provincial revenue this amount of, say, £7OOO a year. The exact amount, of course, can and will be ascertained ; but let me say a definite sum, and in return Christchurch has received, up to May, 1873—nothing. This is altogether wrong, with sickness and death rampant before and behind us. I said before I had no desire to injure the position of the adjoining Road Boards. Christchurch is too much mixed up with the health of suburban districts for a member for Christchurch to diminish their means for sanitary reforms. They must excuse me, however, in saying that I think their present position of hanging on to the skirts of the land revenue is neither dignified nor profitable. They are settled districts, as the towns are ; they have no laud to sell. They have already had all they should get from the land revenue. Their interests and those of the towns are identical. They ought to rest upon a distribution of the capitation grant among Towns and Road Boards, according to population. I will show the four neighbouring Road Boards what their grant would be if based upon population, instead of land revenue, But first I will show how much the four districts sold in the nine months ending May 31st, 1873. Spreydon sold three acres, Riccarton six, Heathcote, 190, Avon 129 acres. For this amount of 328 acres, they, by hanging on to the land, got a vote for nine months of £4292 A fair price for selling 328 acres, no doubt; but say they had rested upon the capitation grant, what would have been the result? The population of Spreydon is 3194; Riccarton, 1673; Heathcote, 4310; Avon, 3968 —the total is 13,145. This number brings in, at 15s a head, £9858 for the twelve months. This would be a much more profitable and more dignified position than hanging on to the skirts of the land revenue, from which they have no more claim than has Christchurch, It would have the additional advantage of doing justice and creating contentment in the thickly populated districts. I cannot avoid thinking that mischief to the whole province must result from this long continued denial to populations of a fair grant, when populations contribute to the extent of £46,000 to the provincial revenue annually. I ask your Honor to bring the claims of Christchurch for a considerable subsidy before the Council, based upon the contributions which Christchurch has made annually for many years. There are sentimental, prudential, and financial reasons why this grant should be made, and not the least forcible is the one that for provincial purposes the early settlers fixed upon a site [for the capital of the province, which from its physical features leaves to the citizens of many generations a legacy of the most obnoxious kind. The town does not shrink from its duty in raising rates or loans, but the cost of the work is so far beyond the means of the town that I am here to-day to ask a fair hearing, and a generous reply to our petition. I turn now to another source of provincial revenue from which the towns expect to derive a second grant. It is of course known to all of us that the province possesses certain railways. It is also known that those railways are to be sold shortly to the General Government, The price fixed is, I believe, £750,000. Those railways have been constructed out of provincial loans. The interest of those loans has been paid by population out of the Customs revenue, and generally population was responsible for the payment of interest, and ultimate repayment of the capital. It is proposed now to repay the province this capital, and I do hope that should this sum be ever placed to the credit of the province that your Honor will secure a just appro-

priation. It has been said by Canterbury members in the General Assembly that this sum would be expended upon branch railways in country districts. This appropriation connot be upheld in sober earnest by any reasonable being. The wants of the towns are enormous, and their claims upon this sum are unquestionable. I do hope, therefore, that your Honor and your Executive will endeavour to deal out justice, not only to Christchurch but to each [district in the province in the distribution of this large sum. In conclusion, I would ask your Honor and your Executive to take this matter of the drainage of the town into your most serious consideration. Individually I occupy a happy position. Should I induce you to deal liberally with us, I will have done well my duty as a representative of Christchurch, but should I fail I will have the consolation that in private life I will reap enormous profit from the results of your refusal. I cannot ted you how seriously I look upon the future of the town should the steps proposed be long delayed. As I said before, common humanity ought to be ample reason for the prompt grant of such a sum as will effectually remove the causes of all this sickness. The question is not without its bright and hopeful aspect. By our water supply, the proposed kerbing and channelling of our streets, and the destruction of soil, we confidently expect to stamp out a large proportion of the sickness, and make Christchurch one of the healthiest towns in the colony.

municipalities:— Capitation Population. Grant, 15s ahead. Christchurch , ... 10,288 . .. £7866 Lyttelton ... 2,912 . .. 2181 Kaiapoi 1,003 . 752 Timaru ... 2,011 . .. 1508 Total .... .. 16,211 £12,310