THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1900.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume II, Issue 134, 19 April 1900, Page 2

THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1900.

The fact of the plague being in Sydney has been productive of much good in the other colonies, at least in New' Zealand, for it has shown how utterly unprepared, are ou" local bodies to protect the public health. For j years they have been living in content, , drifting along, satisfied to let things slide, and trusting to luck. They have now been suddenly arrested in their drifting and brought face to face with a terrible danger — the plague. If the local bodies had done their duty as Boards of Health, and exercised fully all ,the powers vested in them for_,the purpose of

keeping their several districts in a healthful condition we should, at this time, have very little to fear from the bubonic plague, which is essentially a dirt disease. Even at • its present advanced stage, some of the boards seem to have but the faintest idea as to how to act. In our own borough nothing has been done. The Inspector of Nuisances reported everything satisfactory, but what guarantee have we that it is so ? Tie is, without a doubt, a good inspector in ordinary times, but we consider that this is no ordinary time. A medical officer should be paid, and paid well, to inspect the borough thcoughly. . Wai mate has much to contend with in the effort to keep health- ! ful, chief among which is the miscellaneous water supply, and that is all the more reason why a proper inspection should be made. No expense should be spared to put the town in a thoroughly ] sanitary condition. In Wellington, judging by the Premier's words, backed up as they are by proofs, the Board of Health is very lax, and considering that Wellington is the principal place of call for Australian steamers, this is a menace to the whole of New Zea-1-uul. What the local bodies of New Zealand fail to grasp, is that the failure to expend £10 now may mean spending ten times that amount later on. It is estimated that to blot out one or two cises of the plague would cost from £100,000 to £150,000, and loss of trade would amount to more than this. The Colonial Secretary will address himself to the task of organising a health department during the coming session, and that is decidedly a step in the right direction. His scheme, apparently, will include the abolition of the the present Board of Health, and the appointment of medical officers for the various districts' the department being under the supervision of a medical officer in Wellington. The experience of Sydney shows the uselessness of Boards of Health as administrative bodies, and also the danger of divided authority. For the present, however, it will be necessary for the local bodies to take care that their districts are free from nuisances. The Government is taking stringent, but proper, precautions to prevent the importation of plague, and in spite of the opinion expressed in Sydney by the manager of the Union Steamship Company, we believe those precautions to be absolutely necessary until a strict and effective system of inspection is instituted at the infected ports.