AN INQUIRING COUNCILLOR.

Evening Star, Issue 6472, 13 December 1883, Page 3

AN INQUIRING COUNCILLOR.

♦ ■ A member of the Wellington City Council, Mr S. Brown, has just returned from an Australian visit, and, having been requested by the Mayor to make comparative notes on the management of various cities, Cr Brown presented an epistolary report. Sydney, he said, was going in largely for wood pavement, the average cost being 20s per square yard. StreetwateringwaspartlyaocompUshed with salt water. The fire brigade, according to a Bill just introduced into Parliament, was te) be supported jointly by the Government, City Corporation, and the insurance companies, each paying a third of the cost. In Melbourne, the street-watering was similar to that in Wellington, Carta for night-soil were made to shut close, so as to ovoid all offence in transit, and this system Cr Brown strongly recommended. Storm drains were being laid down the principal streets, egg-shaped and concreted. Wood pavement was also being laid there at an average cost of 15s per square yard. One street was lighted experimentally with electricity. Rates in Melbourne were ls4d inthe£, exclusive of water, and in Sydney they were 3s, The manner in which Wellington streets were kept would compare most favorably with any city he had seen. Having regard to the relative amounts available for expenditure in the formation of pavements and water-channels, Wellington was decidedly, in hia opinion, ahead of any of them. In the largest cities, especially Melbourne, watering was done only in the principal streets, and the dust nuisance in the less important streets was even worse than here. People who talked so much of dust and wind in Wellington would find themselves worse off in Sydney and Melbourne, outside the leading thoroughfares.