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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4182, 15 August 1874, Page 2

The action of the Legislative Council in throwing out the Bill for the reclamation by the City Council of part of the Te Aro foreshore, can only be accounted for on one hypothesis. Hon. members, it will be recollected, objected to the Bill for amending the Constitution Act, introduced by the Colonial Secretary, for the purpose of providing a remedy in case there should be an obstinate difference of opinion between the two branches of tho Legislature. They argued that it would be time to pass such a Bill when occasion should be shown for it. Now, it would appear, they have determined to find this occasion. The Bill for reclaiming part of the Te Aro foreihore passed the Lower House with flying colors. And so it will do when introduced next year, as it is sure to be. Then if the Council should be ignorant of its provisions and intents, or be too idle to legislate upon the subject, it may be thrown out again. Had the Bill introduced by the Colonial Secretary been carried, a remedy for so very undesirable a hitch in legislation would have been available. But, even if the hypothesis be a correct one, the Council has been Tery ill advised in the action it has taken. It is well known that there was no intention to spend £150,000 on this reclamation. About half the money would reclaim some forty or fifty acres, which, supposing the money to be borrowed at six per cent., would not cost tho City Council much over £IOO per annum per acre. Hon. na embers of the Legislative Council objected to the security and the act of borrowing, but we can scarcely suppose that they were ignorant, as they seemed to believe themselves to be, that land in tho heart of the City of Wellington, with a frontage to a quay, from which large vessels could discharge, is worth very much more than £IOO per annum per acre. And, it is probable the reclamation would have solved the wharf question, which, without it, will have to be gone into at a very similar cost. If the shallow land of the foreshore were reclaimed, and a dredge imported, there is no reason why thore should not be a quay all round the foreshore at which vessels drawing twenty feet of water could discharge. The intention of the City Council was to lay out a handsome street for those promises to abut upon that now have a sea frontage, thus relieving the traffic through narrow Willis Street. There is also a sanitary reason of a very strong nature in favor of the scheme which the Legislative Council has so foolishly knocked on the head. Wellington, it is known, is imperfectly drained, and thore have been negotiations between the Municipal and the Provincial authorities by virtue of which the latter were to furnish apian of the City, with the levels accurately taken, in order that proper

sewerage might be provided. This plan, which was to be at the joint cost of the two authorities, could not be obtained for less than £2OOO, and to carry the sewerage scheme into effect would cost £20,000. This prudent and beneficial scheme is upset by the blind and absurd action- of the Legislative Council. Meanwhile the City Council will, by it, be compelled to waste money in patchwork and ineffectual attempts at drainage, and the health of the townspeople will suffer. If the Council had but held its sitting in the morning, somewhere near the Adelaide road and the new College where the stench from the filth on the foreshore was almost unbearable and certainly unhealthy—instead of in the afternoon, in Parliament House, hon. members would have discovered a, very strong argument for the Bill which, in their ignorance,,they threw out.