THE SEWERAGE QUESTION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 44, 19 February 1873, Page 2

THE SEWERAGE QUESTION.

The following is a copy of the letter,* addresse^diby hisjjHonar the Superintendeptf to the Etoafd off Works relative to "The! City of Nelson Loan Act :*'— Superintendent's Office. Nelson, February 12, 1873. SrR — I have the honor, by' direction of the. Superintendent, in reference to your letter of the 25th December last, and to subsequent corre spondence upon the subject, to inform you that the Superintendent, after a very full and careful inquiry, has reluctantly arrived at the conclusion that tbe requisition you have forwarded to him, together with the evidence you have adduced in its support are not sufficient to satisfy him in the terras of The Nelson City Loan Act. that "two thirds in Pumßerof the owners of the lands nnd tenements to be specially rated, representing at least one half of the value of the property liable to the special rate have signified their absent thereto in writing." By the terms of the requisition itself,- as well as by the 3rd section of the Act, Halifax-street and Wainaea-road are included in the, district to be, or at least liable to be, specially rated, and if the owners of property in those streets are inc'udert, not nearly two-thirds of the whole have signified their assent to the special rate. , Independently however of this objection, and taking only the localities to which, as thp Superintendent is informed, the; Board intended to confine their present operations, and. over,, which alone the special rate would in the first instance have been levied, the Superintendent finds that some ot the signatures to the requisition are not t'jose of owners of property, but those of occupiers only — that some have been attached by relatives or Bgents without legal authority — and that in other cases the legal position of persons signing is matter for considerable doubt. W ithout reckoning some at least of the lastmentioned class of signatures as vali ?, the number of owners of property does not reach the proportion required by the Act, namely, two-itiiras, settiog apart altogether the question of whether owners of property in Halifax-street and Wai 1116 * 1 :, road should not havn reen included. The Superintendent desires me to convey to the Board the expression of his «freat regret at the decision at which he has felt compelled to arr ye; but it must be obvious to the Board that, unless the terms of the Act are complied with in their strictest sense, further litigation and far greater difficulty and expense than will be involved in present delay in this most necessary > work would be the inevitable consequence. I have, &c, Alfbed Gbeenfibld, Provincial Secretary. The Secretary Board of Works, Nelson..