CAMPING AT SUMNER.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9520, 12 September 1896, Page 5

CAMPING AT SUMNER.

TO THK EDITOR OP THK PRESS. Sir, —After reading your leader on the maladministration ,of. some of our municipal bodies, I would like to _raw your attention to another Council having a " strange capacity for doing foolish things"—l refer to the Sumner Borough Council, who have lately thought lit to pass a stringent by-law to the effect that each camp shall pay 5s for the privilege of camping there towards the revenue of the Council, which practically means they intend restricting camping at Sumner altogether. Now the absurdity of such a by-law will at once force it-self upon any person who has at any time visited these camps. The Council, it is. said, have taken this step after long and careful deliberation on every point, and have thrashed out the measure before taking this prohibitive course, but in arguing the advisability or otherwise of this bylaw they seem to have been blinded by the interests of their own pecuniary benefits and have overlooked the force of the reasoning that could have been bear iv favour of the campers. Take, for instance, one of the reasons claimed by the Council necessitating the by-law, the campers, they say, cause great damage by the destruction offences, which, it is stated, they utilise for firewood. In direct contradiction to this I refer the Council to three of the residents at present living on their own "sacred hemisphere." To prove the fact to a demonstration let them ask the two storekeepers if campers ever bought wood and coal, and let them ask also the carpenter down there* if he ever at any time put up a fence at the expense of the campers. I may here state that the necessity for such a fence was caused by the destructive propensities of the multifarious picnic parties who inhabit Sumner with their own eatables and cooking utensils but no fuel. Unlike the campers who buy their food in Sumner and are ready und willing to pay a water rate, these people who spend nothing, and when no loose fence is about, even go bo far as to rob the camps of their coal. As to the conduct and cleanliness of tho campers their past reputation is impeachable. Sneak to any resident you like, and they will say Sumner without the campers is miserable. Not only are the camps an adjunct to Sumner, but they are tbe means of drawing hundreds of people by the attractiveness of their tents. But the Council complain they derive no revenue from the camps, and it is only right and fair they should; but have they the power to enforce this exorbitant : rate ? Under what section of the Municipal Corporations Act do they claim their authority,' and why not levy a proper water rate under the scale of section 14 of the Rating Act, 1682? That Sumner and New Brighton are places of recreation is manifest, but in the one place we have a Borough Council (against the wishes of its ratepayers), making the place unattractable to visitors, while at New Brighton the campers are encofraged. Should tho Sumner Borough Council not see fit to rescind this by-law, they will simply be driving away the campers to fresh fields. —Yours truly, ■••-.*■.'" A. I>.