THE WANGANUI CHRONICLE AND RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. “Vèritè sans peur.” WANGANUI, DECEMBER 17, 1863.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 7, Issue 374, 17 December 1863, Page 3

THE WANGANUI CHRONICLE AND RANGITIKEI MESSENGER. “ Vèritè sans peur. ” WANGANUI, DECEMBER 17, 1863.

The Lord Ashley arrived in Wellington on Saturday Evening, and the Rangitira on Monday 7 Morning, both bringing most important news from Auckland. Mi\ Harrison returned by the former vessel. The session virtually closed on the 9th, so as to allow the Southern Member's to get away, but it would not |be proi'ogixed until the 12th, much foinnal business remaining to be done in the Legislative Council. Thompson sent a letter to the Governor expressing the desire of Waikato for peace. It concludes thus, — “ The Natives have returned to their respective homes, Friend, it is your side alone which is still in arms ; that is to say the steamer, which is at work in the Waikato making pas as it goes on. When they finish one, they come a little further and make another. “ Now then let the steamer stay' away ; do not let it come hither.—That is all.” The Governor’s reply is as follows, — “ O all you Chiefs of Waikato ! O, Pene Pukewhau. —Your letter of the 2nd December has reached me. Sons, my words to you are these : The General must go uninterrupted to Ngaruawahia : the flag of the Queen must"be hoisted there. "Then I will talk to you.” Satisfactory as the Governor’s answer is

it nxu?t be still more so to know that Ngaruuwhaia is now in the General’s possession, the natives having retired and alllowed him to take possession uninterruptedly. On the Bth a telogram was received from the General to S&y'tiha't4>he Ngtiamanipoto and Waikato hail a dispute resulting in their cutting down the King’s flag staff—[This was a mistake. The Waikatos would not let the Ngutimaniapotos cut down the staff and it was given over to Te Whero for the Governor, ihe Queen’s flag is now upon it.] —and sending him the flag. The General added a request to be informed as to whether he should continue his march, the Governor replied that nothing was to be allowed to stop his progress, and that when possession was taken, His Fxcellency would shortly proceed thither. Instantly on receiving this message the. General pushed on, and early on the afternoon of the Bth took quite possession of the Capfcial of Potatau 11. So far so good The first shot fired in Waikato has not only not kindled the flames of insurrection throughout the island, but the very first blow has proved a decisive one so far at least as that district is concerned The prospect which late events appear to open up to us is such as must call forth grateful acknowledgment to an overruling Providence.

The Seat of Government question seems to have been thoroughly determined on The lower House voted 4'50,0()0 to carry out the removal, such as erecting offices, Halls of Assembly, and Governor’s residence, and the Government has pledged itself, in a Governor’s message, to carry out the resolution of the two Houses without delay'. Should the Halls of Assembly not be finished by the time when the next Session of the General Assembly shall be fixed to meet, the meeting will take place at Christchurch, but otherwise it will be held at the new seat of Govern ment. We regret to say Lieut-Col. Austen, 14th regt., died on the Bth inst. of lockjaw consequent on the wound in the thigh whieh # he received at Rangiriri. The rest of the wounded appear to be progressing favourably. There was some talk in town yesterday about an addition to the strength of our garrison, but all that we can learn is, that when the troops are liberated from the Waikato, a portion of them may probably be sent hither.

Now that the memorial respecting the Avenue Sewer, which we mentioned a fortnight ago, has been forwarded to the Town Board, it becomes possible to measure, with some approach to accuracy, the nature aud extent of the opposition to the work. We are iutormed that the document was taken to every house in or near the Avenue ; and the fact that the list contains the names of several persons not rated to the sewer, and of sevei'al others who have always been supposed favoui'able to the work, seems to indicate that considerable pains was taken to procure signatures. On analysis it appears that, out of 112 ratepayers, 37 have signed the memorial, and that these represent a rating of .£'2ls out of £597 10s. This is a lai-ge proportion and as the document is of a far move violent character than had been represented to ixs, and as several of those who have signed have appended to their signatures notes expressing non-acquiescence in its violent portions, the idea is naturally suggested that possibly a memoi'ial of a more tempei-ate character might have been still more numerously signed. It therefore becomes worth while to examine who the opponents are, and to state, as far as we can ascertain them, the circumstances under which the sewer has been projected, in order to enable the public to judge faii’ly on the subject. The signers of the memorial consist, —Ist, of persons who would only receive a remotely prospective benefit from the sewer and are called on to contribute an undue share of its cost, on the understanding that, at some future indefinite time, they shall be assisted in return by those who now would derive the chief benefit and escape with a very inadequate contribution ; 2ndly, of tenants who object to pay such heavy rates for a permanent improvement to their landlord’ i property ; and 3rdly, of several of those who would derive tlxe very gi-eatest benefit from the work. The opposition of the first two classes was no more than might naturally have been anticipated, but that of the last at first sight seems utterly' unintelligible. Hie prominent part which sevei'al of these veiy persons took in the agitation a few years back for the. closing of the English churchyard, aud the arguments they then used, showed them to be fully aware of the effect upon their wells of impulse nxatters permeating so porous a soil. Habit, however, may reconcile a man to almost anything ; and it would appear that these good folks have acquired a relish for the feculent flavour which renders the water from the Avenue wells j so offensive to strangers. In other re- j spects their words and acts seem equally' i inconsistent. On their own showing, | their premises ai-e a bog, their bones ; ache witli rheumatism, and everything in their houses is bluemouldy—yet they oppose deep drainage. They declared the sewer “ highly indispensable,” and in the same, breath fixed a limit of.price which they believed would render its construction impossible, and now vow they won’t pay' even that. The secret of this conduct, however, seems to be, that they own a number of houses let at a high rental, and that they feel bound to allow their tenants the amount of rates charged to the latter for the proposed sewtT. In this view we cordially agree

with them, and hold that all special rates.for new works ought fairly to be paid by the landlord.. We can easily believe that the rates upon theix - houses may be a veiy appreciable sum to some of these persons, notwithstanding that the Board, by making the rate payable by instalments, has endeavoured to inconvenience them as little as possible ; but we distinctly' assert that it is "the duty of all who erect houses (particularly of .this character) to - make proper provision for drainage axid sewerage ; and we regard the apparent reluctance of these Avenue landlords to discharge this dxxty, as strong evidence of the souxidness of the legislation which placed the mukiug of the rales for such works in the hands of the Board rather than in that of the piobable rate-

payers. The position of the Boai'd in i-eference to this sewer has been a peculiar and difficult one. It sought to attain two desirable ends, drainage and sewerage. Deep surface di-ains might have partially accomplished the foi’mer, but instead of effecting the latter, they would l-ather have enabled those who like highly flavoured water to enjoy the luxury in a more concentrated form. Sewage can only be properly dealt with in towns in one or other of the following ways, —rlst, by' the means' adopted at Christchurch and Ly'ttelton, of having px’oper cesspans fittedjto all privies, and changed at weekly or other frequent intervals ; and, 2ndly, by a properly constructed sewer ; and there can be no question that where, as in oixr town, there is a sufficieixt fiill for the pux'pose, the latter is the pi'eferable, ai:d in the long run by' far the cheaper plan. The Board had, in fact, to choose between deep open drains coupled with a system of cesspans, or a sewer-—and chose the lattei\ The small diffei'ence in the cost of wooden or brick sewers, and the uixcertainty' as to the durability of totaia timber when used for such a purpose, led the Board to prefer brick as their raatei'ial, and the next question was as to size. The Board’s surveyor proposed three feet diameter, and even recommended that for greater convenience in cleansing the sewer its height should be increased to four feet. The great expense of so lai-ge a work was of course a serious obstacle, but probably, under ordinary cii’eumstauces, this difficulty might have been got over, by making x-a Les extending over a seides of veai's, aud boi'i'owing money on them. As it was, however, the assertions that the Board was illegally' constituted, the certainty that a Wellington solicitor had given an opinion to that effect, though on what grounds—as they were not allowed to see. the document —the Wardens could not discover, and the knowledge that the illness, and consequent non-attendance, of Major Duiie at the first annual mceii ing had caused a possible flaw in their election, compelled the Wardens to confine the work within such limits as could be covered by' an immediate rating ; and with this view it was proposed to construct the sewer only of such a size as should be a in ply sufficient to eariy off any water that might be expected to pass into it during heavy' rains, and to fimiish it at frequent intervals with cesspools, in which the more solid mattei’s might collect, and from which they could be removed as often as necessary. For some time the sewer seems to have xemaim-d in abeyance, possibly in the hope that the. new act which the Board was prepairing would enable it to deal more satisfactoi'ily with a work of this kind ; but at length the sexdous illness and ultimate death of one of their number, and several members of his family', last autumn—through, as there was every reason to fear, the want of drainage in the upper pai-t of the Avenue—forced the subject strongly'on the Board’s notice. The outbreak at Taranaki, and the prospect that, in the event of our settlement becoming involved in the Avar, a large population would be thrown into the town, and that a veiy lai’ge proportion of that population would be sux-e to concentrate in the Avenue flat as the safest place, coupled with the pi’obable increased difficulty'and expense of constmcting the sewer under such cii’cumstances, operated as a fui'ther inducement to proceed with the work at once. The Superintendent’s announce-, ment, too, that after this year the Grants in aid would probably cease, afforded a further reason for no longer delay; and the Board at once applied itself steadily to the task of forming the sewer. We think no disinterested person who reads the above can see in the Board’s conduct any justification of the treatment they experienced from some of the Avenue l’atepayers, or could say that in any' inspect the Wardens had exceeded their plain duty' as guardians of the health of the town. The objection urged in Mr. Gudgeon’s letter last week to the prin ciple of the assessment is no ground for opposing the sewer itself, anil if it was to be advanced at all ought to have been so at the assessment meeting, on which occasion, however, nothing of the kind seems to have been suggested. The courtesy' shown by the Wai’dens to the Avenue ratepayers, in going out of their way' to consult the latter, entitled them to like courtesy in return j and if any ratepayer objected to the sewer, or was prepared to suggest a better plan, he should have done so at a proper time and in a tempei’ate manner. Instead of this, the objectors have allowed themselves to become the tools of a knot of violent opponents of town improvements generally, and of the Boai'd as a means of effecting them, and have been led into intemperate language and measures. Even when a temperate measure, inviting the Boai'd to meet a deputation of the ratepayers to discuss some substitute for llm sewei’, was proposed, they spoiled all byappointing on the deputat ion some whose language at the assessment meeting had been .such as to preclude the Wardens,

consistently with their own self-respect, from meeting them ; and when the Wardens in reply proposed that, if the ratepayers really wished the work stopped they should elect other persons to stop it, it was these same Avenue ratepayers who refused to comply with the Board’s proposal, and threatened legal proceeding* instead. The document just sent to the Board is of a similar violent character, and no one can therefore wonder that the Board declines to notice it. If the Avenue ratepayers, or any large proportion of them, seriously wish the sewer abandoned, however foolish we may think them, it is not our business to say them nay ; but vve protest, in the interest of the public, against the use of personality and acrimony in matters of this kind, and still more strongly against the views of those who are willing to risk the stoppage of town improvements altogether, rat her than give way in a question affecting themselves.