THE GLOBE. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 1880.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1921, 21 April 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 1880.

It may be convenient to briefly indicate what are tbe points which will be laid before the meeting of burgesses this evening, in accordance with the notice issued by the City Council. And it will bo well to promise that it will be the function of the meeting to consider the proposals of the Council, but that the decisive poll on the subject will take place not less than one week or more than throe weeks honce. The subjects to be considered are four in number, namoly, the water supply, the erection of a Town Hall and Municipal Buildings, the completion of tho street channelling, and the raising of a sum to pay off tho accounts duo upon debentures raisod imdor Acts of 18G7 and 1871. With regard to the water supply, tho adoption of ono of two schemes will bo proposed by tho Council, namely, eithor the Waimakariri gravitation scheme, costing ,€IOO,OOO, or what wo may call the turbine scheme, costing £BO,OOO. With regard to tho proposals tX! Town Hall and municipal buildings, there are the schemes for erecting both Town Hall and municipal buildings for £50,000, or for croctiug municipal buildings only at a cost of £SOOO. The schemes for channelling and for paying oil' the loans of 1867 and 1871 will cost respectively £15,000 and £35,000. Should an expression of opinion be taken at tho mooting, tho burgesses will bo able to indicate which of those schemes they wish to bo taken np, or they will bo able to show that they are adverse to tho wholo of them. But wo trust that tho discussion will not bo confined to the bare schemes proposed in tho official programme. It is truo that tho 141st clause of tho Act lays down that tho mooting shall be called " to considor the

said proposal,' but it is equally true that tho Act does not contemplate dealing with a Council that is not able to make up its own mind, for it apparently never contemplated having a number of alternative schemes placed before the meeting summoned by the Mayor. The vacillation of tho Council (consequent partly, no doubt, on their not knowing how much money they would be allowed to spend) has made tho situation somewhat complicated, for tho Act certainly only provides for one scheme being laid before tho ratepayers, and their poll being taken later on the question as to whether they will spend a cortain sum of money on that scheme or not. The Act does not contemplate that the choice between a number of schemes should lie with the ratepayers. It naturally holds that the City Council, being a smaller and less unwieldy body than the public, should mature a given scheme and lay it in its entirety before tho burgesses. It is somewhat of a bathos when a Council appeals to tho ratepayers for their decision between rival schomes on which the former cannot make up their minds- Any attempt, therefore, to keep tho ratepayers this ovoniug from indicating their views on the gonoral subject would, we tkink, be foolish, becauso they are already invited to stop beyond the functions parcelled out to them by the Act.

In point of fact the Council, as we have held all along, have begun at the wrong end of tho stick. A gonoral proposal should first have been made and the views of tho citizens should have been ascertained as to tho amount of money they were willing to expond. The Council would then have had something more definite to go upon, and could have matured a scheme, knowing within what limits they would have to keep. However, all regret on this point is now useless. The Council will have to "make it up" with tho Act and the ratepayers in the best manner they can, but we cannot help thinking that a free expression of public opinion this evening would be of great advantage in the direction of vontilating the whole subject of the water supply, and that if the Mayor attempts to narrow down the discussion to a bare explanation of two schemes, he will be committing an error in judgment.