The Evening Star THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1922.

Evening Star, Issue 17920, 16 March 1922, Page 6

The Evening Star THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1922.

At tho City Council last night Cr Shacklock said it would not bo advisable to explore) every mistake made by tho council’s officers, who did not make more than tho usual number of mistakes. This is a remarkable statement from a councillor of long experience and outstanding ability and conscientiousness. Ratepayers bollevo that they elect councillors to safeguard their interests, This means that it is the prime duty of councillors to sco that tho mourn levied in rates, or borrowed on the security of those rates, is not wasted. Mistakes made by the council’s officials entail needless expenditure of corporation revenue or loan money, and if councillor--aro not to investigate such matters, and. if possible, prevent a repetition, wo tail to see tho uso of electing them, Tho urgent need for economy is being dinned into tho ears of Citizens by their political leaders in these days of finances. Recognition of tho principle has permeated many of the discussions of tho City Council itself. How aro councillors to seek after economy in corporation matters if they aro to be dissuaded from investigating instances of waste? There could be no surer way of promoting needless expenditure than by encouraging servants of tho council to beliovo that nothing will bo said if they allow money to leak away through shortsightedness, lack of judgment, or carelessness. There is no need to go to extremes. _ There is a happy medium between a policy of laisec*. faire and a policy of pinpricklng, and that occurs when councillors find and maintain. their correct relation to corporation officers, neither unduly harassing them nor ignoring their doings. Tho incident which drew from Cr Shaddock tho remark with which wo feel bound to disagree was tho absence^ of any explanation for the delay in making use of the latest extension of tho tramway car shed. It appears that there was some error in the plans of tho lay-cut, the result being that certain of tiro material ordered cannot bo used. Tho monetary loss involved, apart from the loss of time, will not bo great, possibly about midway between tho amount mentioned by Cr Tapley and that by Or Scott. In this case we are not disposed to blame the official chiefly concerned. As Cr Scott says, mors time should be given to tho oversight of such matters. Why, then, should tho oversight of this particular matter have devolved on an official who cannot possibly spare time from the conduct of his own important department’s affairs to perform work which really lies outside that department? Tho council’s solution has been tho creation of a new post —that of tramways engineer—at a salary which, in our opinion, is hardly likely to attract tho best talent available. Seeing that the long-deferred question of tramway extensions was revived in the City Council last night,, it looks as if there is a-bare possibility of tho people of Opoho at last getting some satisfaction in tho matter of access, while in the background loom the matters of extension, of tiro Anderson Bay lino to the “ Eastern Necropolis ’’ and of the Caversham lino to Look-out Point, Except for some duplication and tho removal of the Anderson Bay terminus a few yards up tho hill, the Dunedin tramway service remains as it was laid down nearly twenty years ago —which is no great tribute to tho progressive spirit to which we all like to lay claim. If there is to bo a forward move, a salary of £450 to ’tho man in charge is not tho surest guarantee of securing a man 'who -.will at least, to borrow Cr Shaddock’s plira.se, “ not males more than the usual mistakes." ■Some more of these latter received passing attention at last night’s council meeting. On© very minor ono concerns tho clarity of the water at the public baths. The working of the filtration system is “not yot as satisfactory as they would like,” admits Cr Hancock. Nor as tho users would like, we may add. Yet years ago aii‘ engineer not now in Dunedin put before councillors a scheme whereby crystal clear water could bo cheaply supplied to the baths—water already filtered by Nature and involving no draw off from an overtaxed source of supply. It is more than doubtful if tho whole of tho then council was made aware of that oifor. There was then, and there appears to bo now, a tendency to cut tho council up into watertight compartments, so that councillors who feel it their duty to havo a grasp of municipal affairs as a whole havo tho utmost difficulty in gaining knowledge of what transpires in committees of which they aro not members. There should bo no need for research work of this kind. Anything vital in committee proceedings should, with rare exceptions, bo disclosed in open council. That this is not so is suggested by the fact that, judged by newspaper reports, much moro business is often transacted by tho Taieri County Council or tho St. Kilda Borough Council than at the Dunedin City Council. Furthermore, there was, in addition to Cr Tapley’s remonstrance against secrecy in the case already mentioned, a protest by Cr Gilkison against the Tramways Committeo for not acquainting the council with certain of its doings. And ho added that ic he hoped other committees wero not doing tho same thing, but it made one distrustful.”

Counoil Methods.

On the other band, Cr Wilson is to be congratulated on bis frankness in regard to the question of tho enlargement of the southern reservoir. Up to date only onefifth of the proposed excavation has been accomplished, at an average cost of 3s lOd per cubic yard;, as against the city engineer’s estimate of 2s 6d per yard. It is plain that this job is going to take rpry much longer and cost very much more than the citizens were originally told. A long vista of summers without any provision for storage of Silverstream water and a big bill confront the ratepayers. As tho work proceeds progress must become slower and more expensive. The excavating of the lower strata will be tougher work on tho electric shovels than they have encountered in the removal of tho less consolidated surface stripping; tho removal of the spoil will bo more costly as it has to bo lifted from increasing depth and carried! an increasing distance to he dumped. Cr Wilson blames tho broken weather for the actual cost so greatly exceeding the estimate. For their pockets’ sake.- then, ratepayers should pray for fine weather. There are, however, other considerations. But for tho broken weather this summer our water supply, handicapped by the southern reservoir being out of action, would have been in parlous plight. Pleasure in_a spell of fine weather is seriously dis-

counted if tho water tap makes 1 no response. Hope springs, eternal, and some Dimedjn people have not abandoned the ildtea that, a really fine summer is not beyond the bounds of possibility. But if one comes 'before, tho southern reservoir is- again available for use—and that may

what kind of predicament would the city bo? Our disbelief in this attempt to convert a eorvico tosotvoir into a storage reservoir by the most expensive moans of dam constniotibn possible excavating every yard of storage out of solid day—has boon greatly strengthened by last night’s disclosure of progress and coat. Yet many alternative solutions of the water supply problem wore offered—and discarded. Some of them were guaranteed both speedy and cheap.