THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 1880.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1885, 9 March 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 1880.

It becomes an exceedingly difficult matter to understand the attitude taken up by the water supply committee of the City Council with regard to a scheme for supplying the city with water. As we have already remarked, one short week sufficed to convert them in a most miraculous manner from warm —nay ardent—supporters of the Waimakariri scheme, to ardent supporters of one which is as yet unknown to the public. Last night, however, one of their number outHeroded Herod by effectually stifling all publicity with reference to tho proposed scheme. A report was presented from the committee asking power to engage Mr. Blackwell to report upeu the alternative scheme. This, it will bo observed, means the further expenditure of the ratepayers’ money on experiments and elaborate reports. Already over £IOOO has been spent, and now the committee are, like Oliver Twist, asking Jfor more. When the Council is asked to spend money on a scheme about which the public literally know nothing, it seems essential to us that the ratepayers equally with their representatives should have some grounds whereon to base their opinion as to the desirableness or otherwise of such an expenditure. But the committee—who it must bo remembered are asking for a report upon a scheme the cost, extent, or purport of which no one knows —shun for some reason or other this publicity, and move the Council into committee, thus effectually preventing the ratepayers from knowing what is done. Wo aro unable to discover any good cause for such a course. Had there been a question of estimates immediately before the work going up to tender, there would be a reason for the Council considering the matter in committee. But it was not so. A public report, paid for by public money.

was being asked for by the committee. The subject was one affecting the interests of the ratepayers, and upon the decision respecting which naturally some amount of anxiety is felt. Where, then, was the necessity for a secret conclave ? Up to the present the public are quite in the dark at to the scheme for a report upon which it may be their representatives have agreed to expend more money. We have been told that the discovery of some wonderful invention which is to make an' era in hydraulic engineering, has rendered an alternative scheme possible. But what that scheme is, what it is going to cost, and how it is to bo carried out, are points upon which the oracle does not condescend to enlighten us. It was with a view to elicit this information, we imagine, that the Mayor asked the question he did. But the very object of the information being afforded —the very essence as it were of it —is to give the ratepayers some idea of what their money is asked to be voted for. This was defeated by the motion to go into committee, and we are sorry for it. No possible harm would have been done by the proceeedings being public, and a great deal of good might have resulted. The merits of the proposed scheme might have been discussed with a view to eliciting public opinion upon it—a very valuable adjunct in its way to the decision of any public question—and thus the mind of the ratepayers would have been prepared for the final decision which they have to give. It is to be regretted that this system of doing public business in private, which prevails to a large extent in other public bodies in Christchurch, should have been introduced into the City Council. The very essence of municipal government is publicity, and the moment any attempt is made to burke this, that moment do the public lose confidence in their representatives. We do not often agree with Councillor Gapes in the views he takes of matters municipal, but he certainly deserves the warm thanks of the ratepayers for the energetic protest ho entered against this matter being considered and decided privately. The Mayor, in his place at other Boards, has expressed himself most emphatically and decidedly as opposed to any matter directly concerning the public being decided in committee, and therefore we are at a loss to understand why he should have allowed the motion to go without a protest. The action of the committee raises an uneasy feeling at the very outset with regard to this alternative scheme. So soon as a motion is made for any public body to go into committee, it is at once put down by the public that there is something it is not desirable they should know; to use a colloquial phrase, which expresses the meaning more tersely, they think there is “ something fishy in it.” This idea is heightened when, as in this case, no good reason is adduced for the course pursued. The water supply committee last night did not give any reason at all why it was necessary. They did not say it was the wish of the propounder of the scheme or that the publication of anything relating to it would be prejudicial. Had this been done and some grounds adduced for granting the request, we should not have said a word. But it was not so, and therefore we feel that the Council did wrong. If the water supply committee persist in this policy of keeping the public in the dark, the ratepayers will soon come to the conclusion arrived at by Sairey Gamp with respect to the existence of Mr. Harris, and begin to believe there is no such scheme at all.