The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.) SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1874.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 214, 17 October 1874, Page 2

The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1874.

“ Vi e shall sell to no man justice or right: We shall deny to no man justice or right: We shall defer to no man justice or right.”

The Hoad Board, we are informed, has intimated to Mr. Higgins that he must give a guarantee to let the public have the use of the water from the well, which he is about to sink at Makaraka, —and in aid of which public and private monies are to be given,— for ever, as a condition on which the subsidy promised by the Board, will be given. Mr. Higgins is aggrieved at this, and says, firstly, that the Board promised a grant of public money, unconditionally; and, secondly, that he has undertaken to sink the well in the interests of the public; and that he is not likely to close the well as against them. Mr. Higgins says it is hard that he should be obliged, for the sake of a small grant of money, to spoil the title, and form and feature of his land, bv giving a small piece of it to the public. We taink so too, if such were absolutely necessary. But is Mr. Higgins Correct ? Is he not laboring under some mistake ? or several mistakes ? We have not had the gratification of any official conversation with the Board on the matter; but we think we can vouch that the Board is not desirous of saddling so coercive a condition on to the money grant which it has been settled Mr. Higgins should receive. All, we take it, that the Board requires, as the conservator of the public interests in that line, in this district, is, not that Mr. Higgins should injure his property by cutting off a small slice, and making the land over to the Bard—although that, of course, would be the best way of settling the matter — but that he should give a guarantee that the water so long as it runs should be available forpublic utility this M . Higgins says he has given, but if he has, it is put in such a form that the Board are not satisfied with it, and a little more definedness may only be required. But is Mr. Higgins sure that he would not be considering both bis own and the public interests more effectually if he were really to make a fee-simple grant of the land to the Board, provided, of course, that they wish him to do so? If Mr. Higgins gives a guarantee for a water supply, the risk and continual management and expense of keeping the well in repair will be his—it remaining private property; if he grants the land to the Board, it then becomes a portion of the public estate, and the Board would have to accept the responsibility of water supply, of which Mr. Higgins—or the Hotel property — would get the benefit. Again, should he be called on to grant the land—say a yard or six feet square—would it, in any sense, be considered “ a gift ?” The grant of £25 from the Board’s funds may not be considered a large one; but the settlers generally are subscribing towards the undertaking—leaving but little expense, comparatively speaking, falling on Mr. Higgins—and giving money from the public purse is but another form of private subscription, a large per centage of which has already come from the pockets of the Ratepayers. Altogether, Mr. Higgins expects, and we think it quite likely he will, raise £lOO towards a project from which he hopes to receive, indubitably, the lion’s share of benefit; and it would be prudent not to, metaphorically, put his fist too far into his own mouth when it is open.