THE DRAINAGE QUESTION.

Evening Post, Volume XV, Issue 102, 2 May 1877, Page 2

THE DRAINAGE QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE EVENING POST. Sir, — The ratepayers must be upon their guard, for upon them will fall the burden of increased taxation, should such an ill-digested scheme as that proposed by Mr. Climie for the drainage of the city be adopted. His pumping scheme will simply pump the money out of the citizens' pockets, and the whole thing will prove a gigantic failure. This will yet be fully shown to the ratepayers. The City Council are not justified in taking any steps to carry out an expensive drainage [system upon Mr. Climie's mere ipse dixit. What the citizens should demand before any further steps are taken is, that a joint report of the best talent that can be procured upon the drainage of the city, do form the basis of the scheme to be adopted. This is the more necessary in consequence of the reclamation now going on, and the reclamation' contemplated. Any drainage scheme should be of a tentative nature, and, under any circumstances, a natural and not an artificial fall is more suitable to Wellington than the proposition of Mr. Climie to concentrate all the filth of the city at Te Aro, and to poison its inhabitants in its transit from the Thorndon end of the city to its destination at the pumping apparatus. The whole scheme is full of blunders, and if the ratepayers consider their interest, not only in a sanitary, but in a breeches pocket point ot view, they will reject it. I say, ratepayers he on your guard, and attend the public meeting convened for the 15th inst., and stop this deep laid scheme to spend your money without the fullest consideration being given. I am, Sec., A Ratepayer.