THE DRAINAGE CONNECTIONS QUESTION.

Evening Post, Volume LII, Issue 157, 24 November 1896, Page 4

THE DRAINAGE CONNECTIONS QUESTION.

♦ Diametrically opposite statements have recently been made by the two candidates for the Mayoralty as to the position of the property-owner in regard to the connection of his private drains with the public sewers under the new drainage scheme. Mr. George Fisher has stated that, under the Wellington City Drainage Empowering Act, 1894., introduced to Parliament by Mr. H. D. Bell, the property-holder has to pay for all such connections, and he refers, for corroboration, to section 3 of that Act. Mr. H. D. Bell says that section 7 of the Act referred to is the guide for the propertyholder in this matter, in that it overrides all other sections wherever, by reason of the proviso it contains, it comes into operation, Mr. Bell, in fact, dailies the accuracy of Mr. Fisher's statement, and we propose to place the matter in simple form before . the citizens so that they may be able to judge for themselves as between Mr. Fislier and Mr. Bell. ' When Messrs. Cuthbert and Ferguson, the Advising Engineers, reported to the City Council on the Drainage Scheme, they suggested that in common justice the Corporation should bear the expense of all house drains connections with the new system whin such drains were found to have already been made in accordance with the City Bylaws. This suggestion was given effect to in the Wellington" City Drainage Empowering Act, 1894, seotion 7, by the proviso that nothing in the Act should " authorise the Council to charge any owner with the cost of constructing and laying any new drain in place of, or making any alteration or additipß toj any drain \vhich in or subsequently to the month of July 1890, was laid in accordance with the Bylaws of the City for the time being in force." This section therefore discounted, so far as the propertyholders it specially applied to, the sections of the Act which did authorise the Council in a general sense to call upon the propertyowner at his own cost to connect his drain with the new system. When Mr. Fisher sought to lay upon Mr. Bell the onus of inflicting upon all propertyholders the cost of these drain connections, he was calmly ignoring the existence of this saving proviso in section 7 of the very Act by which, he was condemning Mr. Bell. Now, Mr. Fisher's action was the more peculiar because, as Mayor, he in May last received from the Drainage Engineer a report of work done for the year, in which that gentleman stated that up to April, just preceding, 1200 houses had been connected with the new system at tho cost of the Corporation. Therefore Mr. Fisher must have known that some property-holders had not been mulcted in the cost of the connections, and if he did not understand why, he did not discharge his duty as Mayor by remaining in ignorance. Those w,bo know Mr. Fisher, however, will not

readily find such ignorance consistent A\ith his characteristic shrewdness and energy. In May last Mr. Fisher was, without doubt, aware of the section 7 of the Empowering Act proviso, and that it was the authority upon which the Corporation bore the cost of those 1200 private drains connections. Since then he has, apparently, suffered a lapse of memory as regards the proviso section. Recognising this, the citizens will easily adjudge Mr. Bell exonerated from the charges brought against him by Mr. Fisher. As to the drain connections, the matter is most simple. Property-holders whose drains are found not to be in accordance with the City Bylaws of 1890, or any subsequent sanitary bylaws, have to bear the cost of connection with the new sewers now being laid down under the Drainage Scheme. Those whose drains are found to be in accordance will not have to pay anything, the Corporation defraying the cost. And we may add that in no case has there been a departure from this course, as laid down in the Act, by the City Council, other than that in a few cases where the private drains fulfilled all necessary conditions, except in some minor point, they hays not waited for the private owner to supply the small deficiency, but have made, at the city's cost, the connection, and then called upon the person concerned to make the minor matter good, in accordance with the bylaws and what was required. So that, where possible, the Corporation has studied the convenience of the property - holder rather than that the latter has been martyrised. With these facts before them the citizens will marvel, as we do, how Mr. Fisher was misled into making the grave, but groundless, charge he did against Mr. Bell, and so into misleading the propertyholders of the City on a most important, matter.