THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 1881. THE DRAINAGE QUESTION.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2246, 14 June 1881, Page 2

THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 1881. THE DRAINAGE QUESTION.

The Drainage Board may be congratulated on the action taken at yesterday's meeting. Of late it has presented the unpleasant spectacle of a body which has been appointed for the purpose of carrying out the wishes of the people in a certain direction, and which finds itself at total variance with its constituency. The position taken up by the Board has not been that of agents appointed to carry out certain works and expend certain moneys as desired by the persons contributing the funds, but of mentors instructing the public how those moneys should be spent. For two successive years the public have plainly declared that they do not wish the solid excreta to be carried in the drains, and for the same two years the Board has persistently asserted that the public knew nothing at all about the matter. The arguments used by the Board have been confined to its ipse dixit. The various members of the Board have, indeed, written numberless letters, but so have their

opponents. The Board has taken nff efficient steps to meet its constituency, and explain to them calmly the situation, showing what has been, or is to be, done in .places similarly situated, and how the present state of affairs would be bettered were the solid excreta to be treated as they propose. The consequence has been what might have been expected. The public have refused to be convinced by mere assertions, and has plainly said to the Board—" Either prove to us that you, are right, or drop your proposals." Even those who were most favourable to the views of the Board were not encouraged to propagate their ideas. It is all very well for Mr. Hobbs to say that the public meetings represented some 500 ratepayers, as against some 7000 or 8000, and to ask if the Board were to take the dictum of the noisy few against the opinion of the large majority of the ratepayers. If Mr. Hobbs was convinced that he had 7000 or 8000 on his side, why, in the name of common sense, did he not take some way of proving the same to the public. Is Mr. Hobbs' assertion, pure and simple, in this matter also to be swallowed holus-bolus by the public without proof ? If, indeed, there are 7000 or 8000 persons favorable to the Board's late views, all we can say is the more shame to the Board that they have allowed, by want of energy, the will of the minority to trample over that of the majority. "We must, however, beg leave to hold to the opinion that Mr. Hobbs and those who think with him are entirely in the wrong. Although the late meeting was a small one, it was duly convened for the sole purpose of discussing the drainage question, and, in absence of all opposition and the meeting being in no way a hole and corner one, the resolutions passed must be taken as representing the views of the majority interested in the question. " The opinion of those who have no opinion" has been deemed by many politicians to be a very considerable factor in worldly affairs. The opinion of this numerous body has apparently endorsed the action taken at the late meeting. Wo have dwelt somewhat at length on this subject because, although, as a whole, the Drainage Board has yielded gracefully to the inevitable, there has been evident in some of the members a desire to prove that facts are not really against them, but that, by some horrible perversion of the right order of events, they have been forced into a position which is not a strictly logical one. Mr. Hobbs, for instance—we must apologize for again alluding to this gentleman —amusingly hinted that he bowed to the expressed wish of the senior member for Christchurch, although he had not been, convinced by the public meeting itself, and Mr. Hall suggested a house to house canvas as likely to prove to the public that a public meeting is a vain and delusive method of getting at the opinion of any constituency. Mr. Boss certainly hit the nail well on the head when he stated his conviction that the public had long ago tacitly consented to the carrying away of the liquid sewage, and that the opposition was mainly aimed at the excreta clause in the proposed Bill, and we can only express our surprise that any member could have held a different opinion. The wish of the public has, we think, been most plainly demonstrated, to the effect that the drains have been made to carry off the house slops and other liquid matter, as well as dry the subsoil. The system in conjunction with the pan system is to provide all that is necessary for the health of the public. The opinion of the public is that it would be dangerous, under all the circumstances of the case—taking into consideration the same amount of fall in the ground, the absence of flushing power and other matters—-to utilize the drains for solid sewage. This, we take it, is the opinion of the public in black and white, and surely they are entitled to see that their wishes are carried out. Looking to the future, if the Board wish to convert the public to their method of thinking, we trust they will set about the affair in a business-like fashion. We might suggest that it will not do for them to start with the preconceived idea that the old-fashioned sewer is the sum mum honum at which advanced science has arrived. It is true that London conveys all its filth in this way to the Essex marshes, but this proves nothing, and sewer gases often do much harm in the English metropolis. But other methods are employed in other capitals. A contemporary has the following:—" It was stated by Sir James Martin, last year in Sydney, that an excellent method has been in operation for some years in Paris, which leaves the sewers, what they ought to be, simply innocuous drains, containing no offensive matter. It has been stated by Mr. Krupp, in his book on ' The Sewage Question,' that there is an arrangement in Leipsig which works well, and seems not widely different from what is known as 'the Liernur plan.' Again, we are told that Stockholm possesses a system resembling that which now exists in Paris." More advanced science is not at all unanimous in advocating the conveyance of solid matter by means of drains, and the instinct of the Christchurch public has possibly divined what scientists have arrived at by a more laborious process. H the Drainage Board wish to convert the public let them gather statistics from all quarters, digest them, and lay them before their constituency. The public are quite open to conviction, and are not at all wedded to the extra expense incurred by the pan system. If they thought the public health would not be endangered by sending the solid excreta down the drains they would willingly see it disposed of in that way. But the public has refused, and will refuse, to take the ipse dixit of the Board on such an important matter. If there is to be another struggle on the subject next year it is to be trusted that no Drainage Board will attempt to force its opinion in such a very crude and imperious manner as has been lately attempted.