TOO EXTRAVAGANT. TO THE EDITOR.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 41, 18 February 1911, Page 9

TOO EXTRAVAGANT. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir, — Surely the ratepayers are too intelligent to submit to having such a mill-stone put round their necks? It they do, they will soon pay away m rates more than their sections' are worth. To try to raise such a loan for the "baby borough" is sheer insanity. When Eastbourne has as good a tram service as some of the other bays — Island Bay or Lyall Bay— then will be time enough to talk of raising such an enormous loan as £17.500. It seems ac though some of the residents wish to chase the " week-ender " and other small section-holders away and have it all to themselves. They certainly will soon have rates and all to themselves _if they succeed in tho waste and extravagance of raising such a large loan, the expense of which will have to be borne by such a very small population, whose houses for letting are empty more than half the year. Eastbourne, on account of its remote situation, want of proper communication, and time ' wasted in going to and from, can never bo a residential suburb as some of tho other bays are. Carrying sewage underground in such a way causes not only diphtheria, but also various fevers. If they carry out the present scheme, what with the sewerage and the swamp water from Gollan's Valley ladened with decaying vegetable matter and other impurities, they will be turning the district— which is now, with the beautiful, pure, sea air, a- lovely health resort — into a hotbed of disease. Onslow and other large boroughs are content with tanks. Why not a little place like this? Eastbourne is much better provided with water than some of tho other and much larger boroughs. Your correspondent, "Ratepayer," whose letter appears in the Evening Post of 15th instant, is quite right: We will have "to make a clean sweep of everybody concerned in this ridiculous scheme" at the proper time and place. — I am. etc., DISGUSTED RATEPAYER. 17th February.