HOUSE WATER METERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 275, 21 November 1927, Page 6

HOUSE WATER METERS.

DEVONPORT POLICY CRITICISED.

(To the Editor.)

Tho decision of the Devonnort , Council to push forward the project of compulsory installation of water meter* ' the borough must be the cause of much rewJ? Nothing that has ever happened in the borm.ll' during its existence has ever caused so an £ friction or been such an absolute failure . a previous attempt to do the same thine amounted to almost a farce commenced • 1914, when numbers of householders wi!" thought they were compelled to put in w.t.r meters, installed them, but after a time hsrf their money refunded to them because th scheme, as a general thing, proved unworkable When the. water w, v cut off from som e n f the smaller houses because the owners were not in a position to put in meters there was such a howl of indignation from everv clan of the community that the water system was soon restored again. Soon a new council had to raise a loan to cover the cost and became responsible for the installation of the meter* themselves and added a small sum to tha water rate to cover interest and sinking fund. The cost of the meters, the cost of the upkeen and inspection of them and all the interest on the loan have all been lost since then, chiefly wo are told, because the water of the l»k e ' has some substance in it which will in time spoil any water meter. Can the Borough Council now, in the face of previous experience by passing a special order and altering the' brand of the meter, avert a repetition of whit proved such a fiasco thirteen years ago? \ slump is on, and everyone more or less has been caught in it; will this sweeten the tempers of the people towards the project? We never want to see again in some of th« dwellings what was seen when the awful epidemic raged in 1918—methods under the metering system for saving water which were insanitary and repulsive to a degree. An abundant supply of water for private consumption in connection with modern drainage systems is a vital factor in promoting public health and we should encourage it Attend to the leaky taps if you will, also bad and out-of-daie cisterns, and then trust to the good sense of the people not to wilfully let an abnormal waste take place. The whole policy of metering every house instead of having one large meter to measure the total savours of the bad old days, quite obsolete now, when people had to make the streets in front of their own property, as well as to maintain them. The King's highway has now other methods of upkeep less irksome and crude. The same freedom should apply to our water supplies, with the added advantage of the increased healthfulness of the people, the most valuable asset a borough or a country can have. Curtailing the free use of water by putting a measure on it is almost like curtailing the sunshine, and, indeed, life itself.

W. K. HOWITT.