MARTON WATER SUPPLY.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9388, 6 March 1909, Page 5

MARTON WATER SUPPLY.

SIR,—I write to give my fellow ratepayers all the information on this matter I possess. I called cn the clerk of the borough yesterday. I observed a that it „was “potable water that he advertised, hot that water for washing is also a sanitary necessity. He said, of course, that was understood, and would be supplied. Unfortunately being Britishers we must have our clothes washed. It is not everybody who has the' endurance of the celebrated traveller, M. Vambery, who travelled in the disguise of a Dervish in Central Asia, with several pilgrims returning from Mecca, without they, or he, taking their clothes cff for six months. Could we ratepayers only train ourselves to this pitch of per fecfcion, we could defy a six months’ drought, without asking from the borough. As it is, judging from past experience, I don’t think this present drought is likely to go on for more than two or months. I remember one season when the Tutaenui ceased to ran ;before January, and did not run again at Hawkeston until the 18th June. The clerk of the borough put down my name on his list for so many gallons of water, which he said Mr Hinks would supply from a spring on Mr Beckett’s property. I asked, how much a gallon. He told me I must settle myself with Mr Hinks. This, I think, is a capital mistake. The borough should settle the tariff. They could arrange for cheaper terms than we could, and the terms should he such as the poorer ratepayers can afford, and this not only for their own sakee, but also to prevent typhoid and diphtheria raging about the town. I quite see the diffi-. culty of the borough arranging a price without knowing the probable amount of demand for water. But should the price be known, the demand would probably rapidly increase. Anyhow, in a crisis of this sort, the Borough Council should act at once and stand to lose something. They should at once ensure that everybody had a sufficiency of water within their reach, those who can afford to pay for it, and those who can’t, for necessary and sanitary purposes. One of the ratepayers told me he thought the Council ought to supply the ratepayers with water for nothing, inasmuch as some mouths ago, the reservoir had been run off for a couple of days, and a million gallons of water consequently lost, and also that they had been supplying the ; railway authorities with water, and that had these things not been done the supply of water would have been ample for our necessities. 1, however, am of the opinion that all who can pay should pay for water supplied by the Council in the present distress, at a price fixed by tha Council, and that if the Council do supply, it, the letting off of the water will prove to be a blessing; as it will enable the reservoir to be cleaned out thoroughly, which, by all accounts, it badly needs. There is one thing, however, I can’t understand. The reservoir was said to be let run, for the sake of putting in a bigger pipe. Tire pipe and connecting pipe* ate said to have been lying there, like discarded children’s toys, for months. One would have imagined the pipe would have been put in as soon aa the water was run off for that purpose, and the connecting pipes laid down. They.oertainly could not have been bought for the purpose of not using them. I fear that such indecision implies divined counsels among our leaders. When they have determined on a course of action they should carry it out. It seems to me that the idea of larger pipes was a good one, and, if carried out, would bring any fire that j might occur under control. —I am, ! etc , _ j ARTHUR TOWQOOD.