OUR SEWAGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4424, 18 January 1876, Page 1 (Supplement)

OUR SEWAGE.

To the Editor of the Herald. Sir, —Mr. Strange does but repeat my words; he does not come to the point. It is so easy to find fault. His own words convict him o£ presumption. If the fall Mall Qazette says of towns in England, where every theory, practical and impracticable, has been tried and found wanting (and, if I mistake not, even Mr. Strange's theoretical plans), can we be surprised if our own representatives are at fault in providing for the disposal of our sewage on a safe, and, at the same time, economical plan. Colonial works are rarely of a very permanent character, or made out of consideration for the future. The colonist is very apt to ask, like the Irishman, " What has posterity done for me that I should do for posterity." Anyway, we have not the means to spend as towns in Great Britain do —millions of pounds for efficient systems of drainage—always admitting there is such a system yet in existence. A very elaborate and costly report on the Sydney drainage has been lately printed, arid there the Commission decided, notwithstanding the injury to the harbour (of even more importance than our own), that the natural outlet for the city drainage was the harbour. How about' the harbour and the various gullies before ever Auckland was a township ? Where did the heavy rains and the washings find an outlet but in the harbour ? and yet we found a harbour, and a good one —tetter now, perhaps, than ever. Where are they able, after a lapse of years, to do without dredging-machineß? Here, it is true, we may be fortunate a genius in our midst who can tell us how to do without these things. Why, then, does he hide his talent under a lot of ambiguous writing, and not come boldly to the rescue, and let ub at once do away with Harbour Boards, City Boards—l; beg their pardons, Municipal Corporations—and announce the commencement of the millennium 7 I believe if we once get; a first-rate' supply .'of:'pure water to wash our .streets "and sewers, arid to give our' childreijr more, will' be done to settle these queßtionsj and' to reduce" the death rate amongst our' infants, than all the theories aiid -visionaiy dreams ' of quack doctors:' J This' without reflecting , on' your '.worthy correspondent, ' who' I fully, believe gs animated by an earnest deaire to benefit his fellow-men;—l aml '&c., I A. B.