The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, September 18, 1909. MOUTOA DRAINAGE BOARD.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 482, 18 September 1909, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Saturday, September 18, 1909. MOUTOA DRAINAGE BOARD.

At last night’s meeting of the Moutoa Drainage Board a resolution was carried empowering the Board to clear out certain obstructions i.e., growing willow trees, which, it was contended, retarded the outflow of a private drain —the diagonal. The Chairman vigorously protested against the resolution and suggested that the Board should stay its hand until the ratepayers had been first consulted. He was, however, over-ruled by a majority of the members. Ratepayers in the Moutoa Drainage district will see, therefore, that the Board by its action is setting up a very dangerous precedent, the legality of which is open to question. The cost of removing such obstruction from a private drain must be borne out of general revenue —it would be an illegal act to expend it out of loan account. If the Board carries out this resolution it necessarily follows that other ratepayers, similarly situated, must receive like treatment, aud where will it end ? The fact of the Board having erected flood gates at the outlet of the diagonal drain, cannot by the widest stretch of imagination be taken to mean that such action carried with it the control of the drain. The cost of the contemplated work is subsidiary to the principle involved, and we think the Chairman’s action in opposing the resolution, when thoroughly investigated, will be endorsed by a majority of the ratepayers in the district. In our next issue we will deal with the legal aspect of the question.