DRAINAGE BOARD.

Press, Volume XLV, Issue 7187, 24 October 1888, Page 6

DRAINAGE BOARD.

An ordinary meeting of the Christ church District Drainage Board was held last night. Present—Messrs J. Deans (Chairman), W. H. Stephens, J. Bowman, H. P Hill, H. Bonnington, .7. H. Hopkins, H. Crooks, J. Checkley. . . Mr C. J. Mountfort wrote, apologising foi bis absence. The Secretary and Treasurer reported that -.2761 5s had been received since the last meeting; expenditure, £404 4s 6d ; amount of rates outstanding, lift* £50 8s 9d; 1887, outstanding, £19/ los 6d; collected to date, £19,078 13s Id; 1838, rates outstanding, £3960 lis 6d .; ditto collected, £9048 3s 7d; credit balance at Bank, £11817s 7d. Tbe Engineer reported that tne work at the East Belt sewer was progressing satisfactorily He recommended that, as no one had tendered for dredging the Avon and Heathcote, the Works Committee should be empowered to accept tenders for cleaning them. The Works Committee was empowered to consider the matter and report. A letter was read from the Linwood Town Board, stating that as the Board were rendered powerless to levy a separate rate for the Tuam street drair., they could not proceed at present with the work. The letter was received. ,«..,. .. „ Messrs Ward and Co. notified that the Board would be held liable for any damage caused to the Royal George Hotel in consequence of the East belt excavation. The Secretary reported that great care was being taken in the work in order that no damage should result to the hotel. Messrs Holmes and Loughrey, on behalf of Mr CarUvright, of the Royal George Hotel, applied for £50, being Mr Cartwright's estimate of tbe injury to his business and hotel through the subsidence 0 f the East belt drain. The Secretary had replied that there was no damage at all done to the hotel. The Board approved of the action of its Secretary. _ In reply to a letter from Mr C. IJ.1 J . Beadell, it was decided that the Works Committee be requested to visit the place where he complained that willows in the Heathcote caused injury to his property. It was also decided to communicate with the Halswell Road Board on the matter. The Christchurch Gas Company wrote that it was doing its best to meet the wishes of the Board concerning tbe nuisance at the Gasworks road. It was awaiting further information as to the manufacture of sulphate of ammonia. On the motion of Cr. Crooks, it was decided to ask the Company to have the nuisance abated by the next meeting. A letter from Mr T. Smart was referred to the Works Committee to report. Mr Smart claimed £9 for land taken for widening the Wilderness road drain. Mr E. Blake (Chairman of the Conference of local bodies) forwarded a resolution passed by the Conference opposing the amalgamation of the rural districts. The Chairman said that there appeared to be some misapprehension on the matter, as the Board had not proposed to amalgamate the whole of the rural districts.

The letter was received. Having in view the letter from the Linwood Town Board, it was decided not to accept any tender at present for the Tuam street drain. Mr Hopkins moved his motion to rescind the resolution for the amalgamation of Linwood and Woolston with Heathcote and St. Albans with Avon. Mr Crooks seconded the motion pro forma. After some discussion, the motion was put and lost, only Mr Hopkins voting for it. . The Board transacted some routine business, and afterwards adjourned. AN ANTI-BAZAAR CRUSADE, TO THE EDITOR,OF THE PRESS. Sir, —In the midst of the most trying depression, the appalling efl"e L ts of which can be seen in the large number of empty shops and warehouses going to destruction in ail directions; at a time when our population is drifting away, silently but surely in their thousands, and tradesmen hampered with leases are at their wits' end to meet their engagements, back in their rent, their taxes unpaid, a monthly struggle to save their gas discount, and only buoyed up with a will o' the wisp like phantom in the shape of an earlj starting of the West Coast railway to keep them from giving way to utter despair; at this moment, in times like these, the traders are confronted with an unhealthy, unnecessary, and heartlessly cruel opposition in the shape of a series of bazaars. It was only the other day, in spite of the unanimous protest made by the shopkeepers, that the Cadets had an innings, and for the time being " scooped the pool" of all the little ready cash in circulation. Now, a sale of work is advertised to take place at Woolston, aud to crown all a monster bazaar is being organised by the Catholics, to be held in the new Skating Rink, no other building in the town being large enough for the scale on which it is proposed to carry on operations. And then mark the time selected 1 Just before Christmas, the gift-giving season, when tradesmen, who have been struggling with their difficulties and battling with depression all through a long ana trying winter, hope to make up a little "lee way" when the merry festive season comes round. It is surely time that leg.slation stepped in to prevent the churches levying blackmail upon our trading community in such a ruthless, persistent, and wholesale fashion. I hear that funds are not coming in very rapidly to raise up again the Cathedral square menace to the safety of the public, and who knows but we may wake up some morniug to find that some daring individuals consider ib desirable to perpetrate a bazaar inlli tion for that purpose. 1 remember well, Sir, reading a powerful leader iv your paper some time ago on the subject, depicting a fashionably dressed and smiliug siren pawning off with her blandish meats on some silly fop a pretty but utterly useless piece of trumpery in exchange tor his last useful halfcrown. And that puts mc in mind that people go and buy all sorts of things at bazaars that are of no earthly good to them in the belief that they are lor warding a good object; but is the work good ? In many cases it is to pay off the debt on a church or parsonage. But what right I should like to know has any parson or Church Committee to commit themselves or their congregations to such indebtedness ? If the money for such edifices are not willingly subscribed by the people it is the most certain evidence that they are not wanted.

I know a poor woman whose husband died recently, leaving her with six young, helpless children. Tne woman, a splendid hand with her needle, thought to keep her babies in bread with her sewing; but, alas, tbe black mail of the Church stood between these little ones and food, for a sale of work takes place periodically ; the ladles of the Church, who have nothing else to do, give their time for nothing, and make up little articles of clothing, which, of course, as no labor has to be paid for, are sold below the cost of production, thus bringing, through the agency of a Christian Church, in our own fair New Zealand, white slavery face to face with destitution and want. —Yours, &c, A Renegade.