The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, JUNE 10, 1878.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5367, 10 June 1878, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, JUNE 10, 1878.

The discussion which took place in the City Council on Thursday evening last, on tho motion for tho adoption of the report on the city drainage, was creditable to the intelligence, the good sense, and the ability of the Councillors who took part in it; the unanimous assent to Dr. Diver's motion cannot fail, we think, to prove satisfactory to the citizens of Wellington. It was natural, and unavoidable perhaps, that reference should be made to tho comparative merits of Mr. Climie’ s and Mr. Clark’s schemes, but no fair comparison, which would be adverse to Mr. Climie, ought to be so instituted ; the respective conditions were not the same. Those laid down for Mr. Climie, which limited the cost of the work, handicapped him unreasonably, and with the consequences which we have seen. Wisely, the Council did not attempt ,to impose any such limitation upon Mr. Clark, and that being so, —to borrow the expression of his Worship the Mayor, —we would rather pin our faith to Mr. Clark than to Mr Climie.

Their first great difficulty, after dong and patient labor and careful inquiry, having, been got oyer, and a scheme, recommended by its own inherent ‘ and evident completeness and practicability having attained a concrete form and been adopted, it is to be hoped that no avoidable delay will be permitted before the necessary steps are taken to carry it into practical effect. With the rapid increase of population in the city the danger arising out of insanitary conditions, as Dr. Diver showed, increases, and may chance to be demonstrated any day by the abnormally fatal consequence of an epidemic of scarlatina or ot any infectious fever. The cost of this complete drainage scheme is large, but it is, to a great extent at least, a permanent work, and as the money must be borrowed, and the charges for the repayment be spread over a great many years, the actual drainage rates will represent only the contribution made by the oitizens for the use of the means of preserving the health of themselves and of their children.' As population increases the relative weight of, the burden will be lessened ; it will in great part be saved to them in the shape of relief from the heavy charges for removal of sewage matter to which they are now subjected, or be returned to them in another, if an intangible form, in greater vigor of mind and body, better temper, and in a sensa of the enjoyment of a virtue said to be next to godliness, that of cleanliness. Wellington aspires to be theEmpireCity, the permanent seat of Government; the place of meeting of the Colonial. Legislature, and the entrepot of commerce for both islands, ' Its enjoyment of all these advantages is not, and will not be, uncontested. If, when the question of separation of the islands comes up’for discussion, as, —if any reliance is to be placed upon the public speeches and professions of public men, in office and out, — it must come up, we should not leave it in the' power of those; who are jealous of our special advantages, or of the enemies of the unity of the colony, to urge the danger to which members of the General Assembly are exposed by being forced to spend some months of every year in, ill-ventilated houses, •in an undrained and consequently unhealthy city. ;We have heard this latter argument used before, and we may hear it again, urged effectively,: unless we bestir ourselves actively to abate an admitted evil.