The Globe. TUESDAY, MAY 22, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 907, 22 May 1877, Page 2

The Globe. TUESDAY, MAY 22, 1877.

The Drainage Board held a long sitting yesterday for the purpose of discussing the point at issue between them and the public: and finally adopted a manifesto which had been drawn up at a private meeting held a few days ago. Of course until this document is published we cannot be said to be in possession of the final opinion of the Board on the drainage of this district. It is understood, however, that the manifesto will set forth the reasons which have induced the Board to stand by Mr. Carruthers’s scheme. They also further resolved that should a requisition signed by half the ratepayers of the district, be presented to them within one month, asking them to resign, they will do so. At last then the public have a definite issue before them. We must either accept the drainage plan now before us as a whole, or we must ask the present members of the Board to resign. W o have no doubt what the public verdict will be. The ratepayers will not have Mr Carruthers’s plans thrust upon them without further professional ;i Q v ice on the subject. That gentleman Nlds the anomalous position of consulting as well as actual engineer to the Board. Instead of being asked to send in a design M all, bis duties should have been str?Mly confined lo advising the Board wi in regard to competitive designs which should have been called for in the first instance. Sonic of the members of the Board seemed to think it too late in the day to abandon Mr. Carruthers’s scheme. But we respectfully submit

that it is better even at the eleventh hour to repent of their hasty and illconsidered step, than stick blindly to their first blunder at all hazards. We most emphatically assert, that beyond Mr. Carruthers’s opinion, the public have no evidence before them that the scheme is the best that can be obtained. All local professional opinion is arrayed against it. The question is not one between Mr. Carmthcrs and Mr. Bray. What the ratepayers have to decide is, shall we commit the district to the almost immediate expenditure of £200,000 to carry our sewerage to the estuary, and then find ourselves forced into laying out £IOO,OOO more in carrying the drainage of the city right out to sea. It is no answer to reply that the work will be carried out gradually. If we once adopt the scheme and begin to carry it out, we must insist on its completion. We quite agree with Mr. Duncan that a definite system of drainage must be laid down, and carried out continuously. It would be simply throwing away money to adopt temporary measures. But while accepting the premisses of the Board that the drainage of the district is an urgent necessity, and that whatever scheme is accepted must be carried out in its entirety, we do not therefore come to the conclusion that Mr. Carruthers’s plan must be adopted. Wo do not consider the members of the Board, any more than the public, are capable of forming a professional opinion upon the question. The proper course to take, as we have urged again and again, is to refer the plans to a Board of Engineers in whom all have implicit confidence. The Board and Mr. Carruthers have been a year over these plans ; surely nine months more would not make such a vast difference r 1 By the end of that time we could have such advice as would settle, once and for all, the best system to be adopted. But, whatever course is taken, the Board may rest assured that the public will not permit the scheme to be gone on with as proposed by them. If the Board have resolved to stand or fall together on the question of the adoption of Mr. Carruthers’s plans, they most assuredly will fall. The public will, of course, regret the necessity which compels them to part with the the services of a body of gentlemen who are no doubt sincere in their desire to serve the ratepayers, but if they have resolved to persist, in what w r e cannot but regard as a mistaken course, they must take the consequences.

At a meeting of the City Council last evening an important report from the Finance Committee, on the question of the reduction made by the Government from the subsidies to municipalities, was read and adopted. They recommended that invitations should be sent to all municipal bodies in New Zealand, asking their co-operation, with a view of a meeting of representatives being held in Wellington, to take such united action as may be then and there decided upon. We are glad our City Council have taken up this matter in real earnest, and hope that all the municipal bodies throughout the colony will heartily respond to the invitation about to be addressed to them.