WHO WANT5 WATER? Merely the Minority.

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 239, 28 January 1905, Page 6

WHO WANTS WATER? Merely the Minority.

EVERY man for himself and the devil take the hindmost ' would be an unkind lemaik to make to the caiDtam of a sinking ship The "we swim, you sink ' policy has been worked m Wellington, however People m the city who have the needful watei supply merely chuckle when they heai that Brown, of Brooklyn, 01 Smith of Kilbunie, or Robinson of Kelburne, have to ' bathe with a tew el wiung out in half-a-pmt of watei during a diy spell * f- * The people within the city watei area have the whip hand foi they have the biggest voting power "Shall the watei less subuibs have water ?' is the question put to X, who is hosing his cabbages with a couple of hundied gallons fiom Wai-nui-o-mata, and he replies No certainly not, my tap isn't dry'" Still, the man who hasn't got any water indirectly contributes towaids keeping the taps going of the man who has Also, the waterless suburbs are growing, and we frequently hear of files that have to bum out because the Council hasn t the requisite authority, and, therefoie. none of the requisite cash to put 9ome pipes through a hill or so * ♦ -* Wellington is phenomenally healthy If it weie not so the tankdependent suburbs — in which nearly always any case of fever Wellington has ongmates — would become hotbeds of fever We haven't pined for water much up to now this season because good old Nature has been kind, but if Nature brings some of her Australian handiwork to New Zealand, maybe the foolishness of procrastination will bo more appaient. All the hills round Wellington were recently as dry as tinder a very large numbei of new houses aie perched on these more or less glass lulls, and the danger that always menaces Austiahan homesteads m the summer is here in a less degree * * ♦ The Council is engaged m laige works It proposes tiamway extension, tunnels, road woiks, and what not, but it doesn t propose — not having at present the powei — to make life more worth living to the wateiless denizens of some of the subiubs During the last drought the Council became afraid for the people with city water, and commanded them not to use hoses and so on, but it didn't start a condensing- plant for

those who had none at all, nor did it seem to bother its official head about them at all If one man within, a city is a ratepayer, and is entitled to a water supply, another man who is also a ratepayer, and within the city, has the same right. It wouldn t Inu t anybody very much if a tunnel or two did not get started foi a year or two, but there are quite a number of persons who don't want to ' dry blow' themselves m nlace of the wet process of ablution Until councillois become poor enough to have to live in tank-de-pendent portions of the city, perhaps the possibility of a general supply is very remote At present the lack is a decided weakness in the scheme of "municipal perfection ' which Mayor Aitken promised us when the Prince of Wales was meiely George of York