CORRESPONDENCE.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 10764, 18 September 1900, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

SYDENHAM BOROUGH COUNCIL. TO THK EMTOB OF THE PBESS. Sir,—The letter signed "Disgusted" in your issue of Saturday last was a remarkable production. Therabid tone of it, particularly the tirade contained in the last paragraph, its recklessness of statement, th* fact of its appearance immediately after the elections, even the norn de plume adopted, all combine to point to the writer as c dinCTjfliattd or qa» who baa vuxa

foul of the Council, and whose mortification could only be expressed by signing himseli "Disgusted." Your correspondent ought to know that the Council are neither responsible for the valuation on which the rates are levied, nor for several of tho rates they raise, such rates being fixed by other public bodies, and the valuation used for all purposes being that of the Government valuation department. It is true that the rates are increased this year by tho collection of the special loan rate, but why does your correspondent ignore the fact, so very creditable to. the Council's management, "that though the rate was levied -when the loan was raised, it is now being collected for the third time only. He ought also to have noticed that, though there is an increase in some of the rates, there is a reduction in others; and, particularly, he would have found, if he had, like myself, taken the trouble to enquire, that the extra charge for removal of nightsoil is simply due to the extra cost of carting to the reserve at Chaney's, rendered necessary owing to the passing of the Heathcote Sanitation Act—an expense that would have been avoided altogether to the city and suburban boroughs, but for the foolish opposition of the City Council and the Drainage Board to the Sydenham scheme, which the city has since proposed to revive for its own benefit. Apparently your correspondent, as he cannot trust in the integrity of any elected body, would like to be appointed sole commissioner to manage the affairs of the borough with an authority more autocratic than that of the Czar of all the Russias. Possibly it is only such a position that would afford sufficient scope for his methods; but I may suggest to him that there are other countries to which they would be more suited. To speak of a responsible body of men dealing with public funds as "throwing it about like so much gravel," and that without offering a tittle of evidence in support of such an assertion, is a gross libel, and an insult both to their integrity and intelligence, which should be resented by every right thinking man; and it bears but poor testimony to the condition of anyone who could write such rubbish as criticism. That the borough is absolutely the most economically managed of any borough of similar siae in the colony, and probably in the whole of the Australasian colonies, anyone may soon satisfy himself if he will take the trouble. But this is by no means a thing for any but nigger-drivers to bo proud of; for, to allow one man aud a boy to do all the work outside of sanitary matters involved in managing a borough of eleven thousand inhabitants, with, the immense multiplicity of detail implied in collecting so many rates on every single property ; and, doing all this, to expect advice and elaborate schemes from tire clerk in the capacity of treasurer, surveyor, and engineer, at a salary even at the rate now paid (being the same as was paid to his predecessor twenty years ago when the borough, was nofe half its present Size), is simply monstrous to anyone who has the knowledge and capacity to appreciate the nature of such duties. Then as regards the quality of the work done in the borough, no one who has even i casually observed the substantial concrete I kerbing, channelling and asphalting in ' Sydenham, and compared it with similar J work anywhere else, including the city itself, in -which (though a ratepayer of Syd- I enham) I have been a ratepayer and resident for tbe last twenty years, can fail to be struck with the excellence of the work, and the large amount accomplished with so small an expenditure of loan money. i I do not think there are many who share the sentimenits of your corresoondent—l should blush to think it possible.—Yours, RATEPAYER, j [In justice to "Disgusted," we ought»to I say that his letter was received some I days before the recent murdcioal elections, but was held over owing to want of space.—Ed. "Press."]