THE GLOBE. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1880.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1877, 28 February 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1880.

If the object o£ the Water Supply Committee in holding meetings to explain the proposed Waimakariri scheme was to give information to any large section of the ratepayers, they scarcely adopted the course likely to achieve it. In the first place the meeting was called at an hour wliea the hulk of the citizens—those more especially who might be expected to require information—could not possibly attend. To fix upon four o'clock for a meeting which was, as Councillor Cherrill put it, to dissipate the largo amount of ignorance existing as to the water scheme, could only load to one result, viz., a meagre attendance. The committee could have expected no other, and therefore they have rather laid themselves open to he twitted with not feeling particularly anxious to give the information. The first meeting of the series, intended to act as educators of the public mind prior to the decisive meeting, was hold yesterday, and so far as the original intention went, was a perfect -fiasco. The committee were there primed with information, hut enquiring ratepayers came not, so the meeting resolved itself into a conversation on the scheme. This would scarcely have heen worthy of notice had it not been for a statement made by the engineer, Mr. Blackwell, which, to our mind, exactly hit the point on which the public want to receive information. Mr. Blackwell says that " since he wrote his report he felt convinced that a scheme cauld he adopted at very much less cost than the Waimakariri," hut that in his report he was tied to that one. In our articles upon this subject we have pointed out that the information which would he of the greatest assistance to the ratepayers in deciding this matter was a demonstration of the advantages possessed by the Waimakariri scheme over others: in plain words, why the city need go twenty-four miles, and incur the large expense of a main over that distance, when an equally good supply could be got, say, at four or five miles distance. This is just what the Committee have not told the public. Their report—a most elaborate and exhaustive document—went deeply into the subject of the return likely to accrue from the sale of water and the average amount of supply per head. These facts were pretty well ascertained previously, and the Committee threw ho new light upon the subject. But what they ignored was just the very question Mr. Blackwell opened up by his remark yesterday, vis., the probability of a scheme being brought forward of a less costly, though probably equally efficient character. The Committee might reply, and truly, that they were only elected to prepare that : scheme for presentation to the public. Granted that they were so, we contend that the reasons for believing this scheme to be superior to the others submitted form a most important item, in influencing the votes of the ratepayers. It was clearly the duty of the committee to state why and for what reasons the Waimakariri was the best. But they have not done so, and now we are told at the eleventh hour by one of the engineers that a scheme could be adopted at very much less cost than the Waimakariri scheme. Unless the committee are prepared at the public meeting to adduce some reliable testimony to the superiority of their scheme over other and less expensive ones, the verdict of the ratepayers can only be expected to be an emphatic " No." This decision would be one to be regretted, as the urgent necessity for improved water supply for fire prevention is admitted on all hands. But it can hardly be expected that the citizens are going to voluntarily impose a heavy additional rate upon themselves for a scheme, when they are teld that one far less costly can be procured.

The public and the City Council are to be congratulated upon the settlement of the fish hawking difficulty, which has been so intolerable a nuisance for years past. There need be no delay as far as the arrangement of a market is concerned, and those who require to buy fish will as readily purchase it in the market as at a particular corner of any street. There is just one matter we should desire to refer to with a view, if possible, of an alteration being made in the proposal as it now stands. According '- to Cr. Gapes' proposition, the whole of the offal, &c, from the fish market will drain into the river. The Avon is now polluted far more than it ought to be, having regard to the health of those living near it, and if it is possible to prevent any addition to the pollution which daily goes on, it will be a benefit to the public. No doubt the Works Committee, when laying out the proposed market, will take steps to provide other means for the drainage being disposed of than by allowing it to flow into the river.