OUR SUBURBS.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2238, 30 April 1881, Page 2

OUR SUBURBS.

We are glad to perceive that one of our suburbs at least is awakening to the fact that affairs outside our two municipalities are not as they should bo. It is rumored, we hoar, that the residents of Papanui are about to bestir themselves to have their portion of the Avon Road Board erected into a municipality. It is high time that something in this direction was done, and it is a step that wo have strenuously advocated, not only with regard to Papanui, but to oilier ciowdod centres outside the boundaries of Christchurch and Sydenham. Either lot such centres bo made separate municipalities, or lot them bo absorbed into one or other of the existing ones. There are selfish persons in all districts, who, as long as they themselves and their families are untouched, object to being rated for the sake of the general safety. But it is to bo trusted that such individuals are outnumbered by those who see matters with a wider outlook. We fancy that, if the vital statistics of our suburbs were obtainable, the general public would bo somewhat startled. At present we have only such statistics for the various boroughs, and generally, for the old provincial districts. But the record of health in our suburbs would, we feel confident, be a gloomy one, and open the eyes of the most selfiish and reckless to the necessity of a different state of affairs obtaining from that which now exists. And not only with regard to the safety of the residents is such a change desirable, but the general comfort would be greatly enhanced if affairs were taken out of the hands of the Road Boards. The residents of Papanui, it appears, are annoyed with the Avon Road Board for the manner in which they have been treated, and accuse that Board of partiality and incapacity. The residents, however, would do well to consider that the principal fault lies in the system and not in the men. Road Boards were formed for certain objects, and the regulation of affairs in crowded centres was certainly not included in the original design. Papanui and other centres have outgrown their Road Boards, and no exertions on the part of the latter could do justice both to them and the remainder of their respective districts. By all means, then, let the system be changed to one better adapted to the circumstance of the case.