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Lyttelton Times, Volume LI, Issue 5587, 21 January 1879, Page 4

The City Reserves are before the public once more. This time it is only a matter of changing the use to which one of them is to be put. The City Council sought to effect this object last session, by getting the Legislature to pass a Bill, but the Upper House was very properly suspicious, and the attempt failed. Legislation having, like the “ spirits from the vasty deep,” not come when invoked, another class of spirits, the Ministerial, has been appealed to, and has promised to appear in the shape of a proclamation, if the law will permit. As we understand the matter, the present market reserve is to be cut into two, one portion remaining as a market site, the other —including the space now occupied by the ancient Post-office, which looks as if it had repented of its sins and was ready for death —being made available for the building of a Town Hall. Granted the necessity of a Town Hall, the proposed arrangement is good, for the present size of the market reserve is out of all proportion large. It is a very absurd definite space for a very indefinite market. If the advantages of a market are sufficient to fill a library of volumes, not one of them will be lessened by giving out of the superfluity of the present site ground enough to build a fine Town Hall. The necessity for such a building has long been accepted by the' public here, as it has been everywhere else. Some accept it for the semiccntJinfvnfal, semi-civicpatriotic reason that the streets of the city should he beautified by a certain judicious expenditure of public money. Others hold that as this is not a climate in which open-air meetings can depend always upon fine weather, the citizens should have a covered place wherein to meet whenever public occasion demands. It is undoubtedly wrong that the ratepayers should have to pay for the use of a hall when they want it for their meetings, and wait their turn like other applicants. The number of public meetings, too, is probably very much decreased by this state of things. Others hold, moreover, that as the time has come when the City Council must build offices for the proper conduct of its business, the opportunity is a good one for combining in one block of buildings the desired Town Hall with the proposed offices. The necessity for a Town Hall is established by a combination of these several views. As there is no proper site at the disposal of the Council, as the Council has not, through want of endowments, funds for buying a site, as the ratepayers have refused their assent to a loan for buying one of the enormously expensive excellent business sites in the city, and as the market reserve—itself a grand site—is not injured by the proposed subdivision, the promised proclamation by the Government follows as a logical consequence. The Town Hall being erected, it is obvious that a small revenue of some kind from it would be beneficial in the extreme. But the Attorney-General obtained a species of understanding from the deputation that there was to be no rent or other revenue. Now, the alteration of purpose is not a reason for making a radical alteration in the financial aspect of the case. If it is right—from the Municipal point of view—to charge rent for the stalls in a market building, it is right to do so for shops in connection with a Town Hall. We should imagine, therefore, that the understanding only precludes the letting of portions of the proposed Town Hall site for private buildings. This view of the restriction in the matter of rent and revenue presents no objection to auy reasonable mind. In fact, without such a restriction, it would be highly impolitic to loosen ever so slightly the present provision of the law in respect to the Municipal reserves,! Tho City Council have done well to bring the matter forward, and the AttorneyGeneral deserves credit for the wise care which he displayed in fixing the limits.