WATER POLLUTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 119, 7 October 1912, Page 4

WATER POLLUTION.

Ostensibly as a matter of form the Pollution of Water Bill was read a second time in the .House of Representatives last week and referred to the Agriculture, Stock and Commerce Committee for report. But simply because the Bill has been' fathered in its initial stages by the Prime Minister, these is no reason why it should be allowed to find its way into the Statute Book without the most carqful . scrutiny. Naturally enough, Mr. 'Massey has far too much to do to give, his personal attention to all measures bearing his name, and we are inclined to think that this is one of those that he has accepted more or less on trust. It provides, among other things, that before a farmer or anyone else depending on ,a running stream for his water supply can obtain an injunction to prevent his neighbor higher up the stream polluting the supply, he must prove, to'the-satisfaction of the Ojourt: "(1) That the quality of the water is so deteriorated by the pollution by waste products as to render it unfit for use by persons or animals, and. (2) that there" is not available to the plaintiff a sufficient supply of other junpolluted water upon or immediately adjacent to his property." Presumably, it would be a question for the Court to decide when the water was "unfit for use by persons or animals,"'but obviously water might be very unsightly and very unpalatable before it was actually "unfit" for liunian consumption. Then it would be very hard ,upon. the small settler, for whom Mr. Massey has such special concern, if a flax-miller or a" saw-miller were at liberty to turn his waste prpducts into a stream from which the settler's family and his stock were obtaining their water, so long as they had access to a well at the other end of the farm or could help themselves over the fence from a neighbor's tank. It ,ia; proposed; too, to make the Bill retrospective.in its operations, so that a man who has got an injunction under the existing : law may have it dissolved on its being shown that he could, get water elsewhere if the streams-were .again polluted. The measure, in fact, simply bristles with material for quibbles and disputes, as well as opportunities for the infliction of grave injustices, and we can only suppose that it has been drafted in the interests of some body of manufacturers who are fretting under the, restraints imposed upon their industries by-former Governments. But it would be wise if the House were to recognise that the public interest comes before any such consideration, and give the Bill the most careful attention before it is allowed to pass.