STRATFORD'S WATER SUPPLY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 64, 15 July 1915, Page 3

STRATFORD'S WATER SUPPLY.

MR C. A. MARCHANT IN DEFENCE. I [To Tub Editor Stratford Tost.] . Sir. -Your report of the Borough Council discussion concerning the blocking of their intake is very interesting reading, and reveals your humble servant ill a new and unexpected light ;but although your sapient Conncillors(l include the .Mayor, of course) are evidently warriors in matters of opinion. thc.\ are lamentably weak when it conies to .lueasious ol tact. One would not like to accuse them of wilful misstatements, but the speakers who made so free of my name must stand convicted of having I'ailcd to make themselves acquainted with the facts and with the past history of their water supply. They wanted a scapegoat, and thought myself a very promising subject. no doubt ; just so. Now, one fact is 1 had no mote to do with the block at their intake than yourself or the man in the moon ; it is the Borough Councils of the past ami of the present "ho are responsible. They have taken enormous quantities ol road material from the river-bed in Stratford, lowering the bed for miles up and interfering with the natural levej at , the intake; having accomplished which, they erect a silly little weir to trap silt and rubbish as they come down the stream, which ol course make Tor the intake and pass into the tunnel if they can get through the K rntiji «j; ; if they can't. they block it. No sluices are provided to allow the rivfer to scour itsell', and if they were provided, there is nobody, so far as 1 know, to attend to the head-works. There is a concrete settling-tank and equipment where the iron main begins, and it would be interesting to learn how much systematic attention it has received for years past. No business of mine, of course; your Councils can look after it or not, just as they please; which leads to the statement between the Borough and myself (except for the payment of 3os. which 1 have not yet received). What they call an agremeent, no doubt, is an easement to do certain things on a certain defined area of my farm, a right which the Council of that day bought and paid for; and it is a grave reflection upon your present Mayor and Councillors that they did not. before .Monday's meeting, find out what rights they had; their solicitor would have told them in a very few minutes. And this leads me to two more statements of fact, viz., that I have never refused permission to clean out the tunnel ; and that I have never been asked for permission". 1 have plainly told the Council of former years that .1 would grant no more easements over my farm, and il anybody feels inclined to judge me unreasonable I would invite him to firs! ask any solicitor hi s ' opinion before he jumps to a conclusion. Yet another fact is that there has been n< obstructive unwillingness on my part to arranagc with your people. Your last Council (i suppose it was) asked mo to name a, price for certain land which they considered would put them right. I did so. although with my family of sons it is against my interest to part with any, even at a fancy price—which this was not. Never heard another word about it. good. bad. or indifferent; my letter 'must l)e on. the file in the office, and your present Councillors must have strange methods if they know nothing about it. The whole real trouble is that your Council wants to do things on the cheap instead of making a business matter of a purely business proposition. If a farmer goes to any one of them in his individual capacity to do business he is expected to pay fair current rates (always be polite and charitable, my child) ; but when the same men get together as a local body their views change most amazingly. Only in self-defence have 1 written this, and will conclude by saying that I reckon it is playing it pretty low-down for a private individual'to be nagged-at: by a public bods in open meeting when it is they themselves and their predecessors who have made any muddle that exists; they are simply wanting to save their own skins at anybody else's expense. I ami etc..

G. A. MAIICHANT Cardiff. July 13, 1915.