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Oamaru Mail, Volume II, Issue 554, 9 February 1878, Page 2

The Christchurch people are on the tiptoe of expectation in reference to the arrival of Mr. Clark, the engineer who is to deliver them out of their difficulties with regard to draining their city, and the Press wants it to be decided what Mr. Clark is to do when he arrives, which may now be at any moment. That journal says that " Some members of the Drainage Board are possessed of the idea that Mr. Clark is to report, amongst other things, upon the scheme proposed by Mr. Carruthers. " It asserts that the understanding was that the ideas suggested by the Engineer-in-Chief were to be abandoned altogether—" that the district would have none of it." The reason for their dislil.e to the scheme is that which we urged when it was first mooted—viz.. the pollution of their rivers and estuary, for which undesirable a purpose the people would have to be heavily taxed. There is no mistaking the language of the Press on the matter —and, we might add, that all the Christchurch newspapers take the same view—for it says that '*' it will be a gross waste of time and money if a false question is put before Mr. Clark, and if he reports upon plans which the ratepayers have distinctly intimated that they will not have."