WATER SUPPLY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1247, 23 January 1896, Page 35

WATER SUPPLY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —To Councillor Devine the ratepayers in the elevated portions of the town owe the easing of their water famine last summer, and I beg to thank him for moving again in tho matter. The present dearth is occasioned by, in some districts, the smallness of the m tins, and in others the fact of the Council selling for manufacturing purposes that water for which they have collected the rates from householders. Not onlv is the house supply deficient, but the late fires have shown that water for extinguishing fires cannot be depended upon ; and the insurance offices are in possession of an opinion from Sir Robert Stout that where the absence by preventible causes of sufficient water to put out a fire occurs, the Council is liable to repay them the losses under their policies. Tho offices are only waiting for a big enough fire to make it worth while to submit this view of the position very strongly to the Council. Now, the Municipal Corporations Act, 1880, ordains that water shall not be sold for outside purposes unless there is an excess after supplying domestic and fire requirements, and that should this excess cease the Corporation is to immediately stop such sale. And the Criminal Code, 1893, defines as a common nuisance an omission to discharge a legal duty which omission endangers the health or comfort of the public, and clause 141 prescribes twelve months’ imprisonment for anybody committing a nuisance of this character. It would seem therefore that in neglecting their legal duty the Council not only jeopardize the citizens’ health while obtaining water rates from them under false pretences, but they are risking a very heavy demand from the insurance companies in event of a groat fire, and they stand the chance of doing twelve months “hard.” Holding out the prospect of plank beds may probably lubricate the ways for IVIr IDovinG s motion, outi if it fails I will be prepared to “go odd man in ” with nine other ratepayers for the unpleasant duty of laying a criminal information against our misrepresentatives. —I am, &c., Unwashed.