Marlborough Times. FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 1880.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 130, 18 June 1880, Page 2

Marlborough Times. FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 1880.

The case of the Queen v. Bowler and others, of which a report will be found in another portion of our columns, and the subject matter of which—a squabble between the two local River Boards—is no doubt familiar to most of our readers, seems to point to further litigation, a consummation to be desired by nobody, but the lawyers employed in it. If it were possible, therefore, to determine what the rights of the parties are, without a series of expensive actions, it would be well that it should be done with as little delay as possible. We should imagine that it would be quite possible to have the facts determined by the injunction case now pending. It also would, in all probability, greatly conduce to a peaceful solution of many difficulties if the two River Boards were amalgamated. So long as there are two Boards in one district, divided by a river, be it remembered, they are certain not to agree, and the result will be that the ratepayers will be the sufferers in pocket. As regards the case tried yesterday, which decided nothing, except that defendants were not guilty of felony, a fact of which everybody was aware, we believe the costs will not come cut of the rates, or at all events, not the whole of them, a fund having been raised for the purpose of meeting expenses by some of the Spring Creek settlors, but if the seed now sown is allowed to ripen in the law courts, to the fullest extent, of which it seems capable, we may be sure that the ratepayers will find themselves involved in the tangled branches of a tree of litigation, from which they will not escape unharmed. The union of the two Boards at the present time, when feeling is running somewhat high between them is not perhaps very likely to take place, but eventually we have no doubt that public opinion and the “breeches pocket ” question from the ratepayers’ point of view will be brought to bear on the question. It is, we believe, doubtful whether in strictness either of these Boards is justified in spending rates in law without the consent of the ratepayers, and whether or not a mandamus would not lie against them for it. But whether this is the case or not, we should be glad to see, in the interests of the public, and for the welfare of the district, a stop put to the litigious spirit which has been lately evoked in this matter. The rivers are nuisances enough in themselves, and have absorbed many thousand pounds of hard cash in so-called “ protective ” works, the utility of some of them being very doubtful, without further funds being unnecessarily spent in law. If the parties

concerned like to take up the matter on their own individual accounts, and pay all costs out of their own pockets they have, of course, every right to please themselves, but the majority of the ratepayers naturally object to be saddled with an expenditure .not sanctioned by them, and which many of them consider altogether unnecessary.