OPENING OF THE WATERWORKS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 3 September 1880, Page 2

OPENING OF THE WATERWORKS.

After .some time had been spent in examining the race and partaking of refreshments, plentifully supplied by Mr. Gordon, .of Tees-street, the speeohifving usual on such occasions was indulged in, the speakers occupying an elevated piece of ground. His Worship the Mayor said he might, perhaps, be allowed on behalf of his daughter to express her sense of the great honor conferred upon her by being permitted; to perform the ceremony just concluded on so important an occasion. At l the same time he thought her presence was rendered more appropriate by the fact that she was a native of the Colony, having been born at Christchurch. On behalf of his daughter he had to thank them very much for their attendance. .It might perhaps be necessary on such an occasion as that for him to say Something about the wprks which were drawing to a The subject was ao. wide, the works had occasioned so much anxiety, ; had ocoupied so. much time, had been surrounded by so many difficulties, had met with so much obstruction, and there had been unfortunately so much irritation in connection with them, that he scarcely knew where to begin and where to ; eridi ' Ha would first allude to the difficulties in connection with the Engineer, and would be as delicate as possible in dealing with the subject. It was something like five years since the waterworks scheme was first mooted and steps taken to put the scheme into operation. As they were aware, the scheme had been propounded by Mr. M'Leod, The then 'Council had instructed-that gentleman to prepare plana, specifications, and estimates for bringing the Waitaki water to Oamaru. These plans, specifications, and estimates ;were! ; duly' : preserited and; adopted by the Council on the full faith that they were correct—thai, thejy had been hPOpstfy prepared and hcinefUy. presented. Those plans, specifications, and estimates, he woul4 say, 'however honestly prepared, had- not,.,been honestly presented and carried out.' The Engineer had wilfully misled the Council as to the probable cost of the works. He was extremely sorry to jsay this, but it was only right that these things should be made known. It was only within the last few months that their suspicions had been aroused that the work was not being properly. carried put, , and that . those suspicions had been confirmed. He could not help saying that' much greater trouble had been takdn to blind the Council than to supervise the proper carrying out of the work. Matters of finance had been another source of very great, anxiety, and he would §ay a few words upon that subject. He could not, from his intimate knowledge of all that had transpired, pass over the i matter in silence... As they knew* the National Bank had for some years been i the bankers to the Corporation. Matters ; had gone smoothly' enough until the £60,000 loan had been nearly exhausted. The Council then applied to their bankers for accommodation until such, time sis fresh arrangement# could be' entered into. x There was; nothing singular in such an application, Such an application

waa simply like a retailer requesting goods. \ from the merchant with whom he was in the hajbit,, of dealing.' Those overtures to t.Ke bank were hot met in the spirit in which they should have been met by the financiers of the Corporation. Thoy ' had been met with distrust and suspicion. Those entrusted with the management of the bank had.apparently conceived that as the Corporation had .gone into the market and borrowed L 60,000, aDd had given an estimate that the work would be finished for L 65,000, the work, should have beon completed for that sum. The Council had been accused of wilfully and 'knowingly deceiving the-bank.and, the,.purchasers of * ' the debentures. This was altogether unfair to the Council. He assorted boldly that there had not been the slightest attempt to practice deception, it had been found necessary to again go into the money market. Unfortunately, the town was not at the time tinder the Municipal Corporations Act, ;1876, and they could not borrow without seeking fresh powers. They, had therefore again 1 to go to the Legislature and ask power tot. ; < borrow an additional sum. Then commenced their difficulties. Then the question arose,. ; were the works to stop, to be> • ' abandoned, or were they to go on] lb , ; was felt absolutely necessarV for the 'of the works and the welfare of the town that they should go on, and to ieek fresh , - legislation. Money was requisite to carry, on the work in the meantime, but the bank ' w,ould grant no assi stanee., Thie bank in effect, said, "You have deceived us, you can go * 'but we are willing to take anything you can, get." This was most unfair. Having secured from Parliament the power to borrow;, the bank declined to float the loan. They went through all the banks and many mercantile firms before thoy could get anyone to undertake to float tho loan. iFortunately, at last, Messrs.; Oar-; gills, (jibbs, and Co. undertook tb hego- ■ tiate ; the loan through theit London house—Messrs. Cargills, Joachim, - andi Co. On the debentures reaching London, it was found that they Were useless, that-.' a,, fresh power must be obtained 'from Par- , liament, and that fresh debentures .had be sent Home. The l6an was ultimately, successfully floated, but money waaneces- , sary in the meantime to carry on the Work. Then came their particular. The Works were being carried on, but the., ' contractors and daymen wanted their f money, and the Engineer required double, watching. As no monetary assistance ' could! be obtained, the Council : had to. * issue debentures. By this means' they tided over the difficulty, but again the'" sum obtained was insufficient, ahd they 'IOJ had to seek fresh legislation to enable \ them to borrow a further sum of L 10,000; The Bill had been passed during the late session, and he believed that by the 16th instant they would- be in a-legal position to offer the necessary;securities, and heV: had no doubt, that the money would be obtained. In the meantimethe cok» •'! tractors were walking about town" Waiting for their, money. He, regretted , very much,: personally,, that he 'ywa'ai',' 1 not -in a position to assist tltenu t Those who should come forward and,, assist the Corporation would not advance ' a shilling. Before leaving this subject,, he desired to say that the locat managerof the National Bank had had a very deli-• • « cate and responsible duty to perform, and" while sympathising with the town ani Council'; he had performed his .duty faith- , | fully according to 'the orders of. his supfr- ' riors. He desired to mention the very great assistance. given by, the Colonial Bank to the contractors under the Council V? That Bank had,, without asking, tfla Council to resign absolutely those iy»uri'- •• ties which had been entrusted to it by the • town, or without seeking to obtain the. security of the Councillors Jointly and severally,, come forward and assisted the,' '• contractors to carry on the work upon thfej faith of the certificates signed by tha Finance Committee. Their thanks , werei therefore due to the Colonial X&uk. Ha' >. had told them the dark side of the matter; he would now say a few .words on the bright side. The scheme was looked upon as much larger than was required by tho town. Personally, he would not hava had ' a share in it had he known that it was. going to cost double the original estimate.. That it was a grand work—a work which our children and our children, would regard as a fitting memorial of our--selves —a work for which Dunedin or Wellington would gladly give a quarter of a million. No drought would affect, our supply, and in a few years the full benefits i of the scheme would be fully appreciated - and freely acknowledged. Mr. Sumpter then proposed a vote of ' thanks to the members of both branches of the Legislature, who, in spite of many difficulties, had carried the several Bills connected with the waterworks through Parliament. In the course of some lengthy remarks, he stated that some timet sincft it had been suggested by some to let tho, works remain in their unfinished state,, but on a vote being taken it was decided by a large majority to go. on with tho. work. It was well that the works had been completed, otherwise the town, while being saddled with heavy taxation, would have received nothing in return. It was only right to say that five years ago ho, as Mayor, in company with the Council and the Engineer, visited tho ground upon which they had met that day for the purpose of pointing out the ground for the reservoir.

Mr. Steward seconded the. motion* and said he did so as one who had'filled both capacities of member of' the House of Representatives, and Mayor, and as possessing an intimate knowledge of the difficulty of carrying money bills through the Legislature after power to borrow ha,f| once been granted. He said he had experienced "many an anxious day and over the scheme. When he tbfl Council the scheme had been styt?red qppft and the initial step taken, b,ut the Council with him had deemed absolutely neoea' sary for the welfare oij the town to push on the work. They- had striven to do so without too heavy burdens upon the town—twithout paying too dearly for theijf whistle. They had Mr. M'Leo'das an adviser, and they had an eviy dence of that gentleman's engineering ability in fact that the water w&a now flowing into the. reservoir. Ho then to the remarks wado by the North Qfca,g<x that the Council should have checked over the estimates given by -the Engineer, 'and said he would defy any man who "was not a practical engineer, to have done so. No man an engineer .could give or calculate W estimate of quantities in so large a work* He then said that the fact that the fiwi tender for the. work showed that; there WW? reason to believe; that the work would Jbe ; completed for the original estimate. Mr, Henderson had' tendered to do the whole of the work from the intake to the re*ej-. yoir for the sum of L43,0Q0, and others had sent in tenders within a few thousands of that sum, so that Mr. Henderson was not far out in his calculations. If they added to the sura, named the cost of the pipes, it would be [ seen that there was room for believing that the original estimate would notbo greatly exceeded. Unfortunately HLr« [Henderson's tender had been aocepted, jfor that gentleman had failed, -Pressure 'was then brought to ; bear upon the Council not to let the whole work, again in one contract—to give the local coni tractors an opportunity of tendering for portions of the ryork. The Gounoi i yielded,; and from this circumstance resulted a large sharo of the extra 90s. The Councillors liad peformed their, du ? faithfully. There had been mistakes, an big mistakes too, and the Engineer M made thegreatest ofthose over the estimate for the oompl^i® 11 the work with. the . Engineer ■ Ue -j the. Engineer ifjw ; ww *

OvetVihfng into t M>nlv ho received wa3 Yes. f* t# r Steward) had then told the He , to a dd 33 per cent, to the fear of mistakes. The result jont for y then the sum set 6ad P"!f' b sLdl. However, they had 4, * B Ttho worst part of their difficul»*"SSSHo had „o des ' ft she future. The population increase so lately that the ffo i when divided amongst the population of the town, would eD felt- He then spoke of 00 which accrue to the town ti,e lSSetion of the scheme, They wbe noticeable in many directions. * i,th rate of the town would be reand they would see children grow®lCo to be 1,16,1 an< * women w bo would ®| have filled infanta' graves in the ■"KfSe was carried with cheers. Se Hon- H. J- Miller, M.LC., m Z&bv to the vote, said that the J the Bills through Parliament ffSrtainly not been as smooth as ♦«r AH the difficulties mentioned by t tfavor had found their way into Parf e \t and added to the trouble of %e the B2ls through. It was a pity Se total cost of the works had not ffn. set down at first. However, he conflated them upon the completion of There was no doubt that, *Vitever the cost, the work was a good The supply was inexhaustible, and iTaoality of the water excellent. Dunr and Wellington had entered upon _,t ,pjietncs in order to obtain a suffisf° f , nD nlr. They would never have to f her! It was nnfortnnate that the «t°of the water should fall upon them ® time of depression, but he did not ( jV a gloomy view of the future, and was ■ Jmoefal that the present depression would the mean 3 of calling into existence , „»* industries. . jf r Shrimski, M.H.E., in returning w for the vote of thanks, said that he Jj been a resident of Oamaru for 20 jis and that when he looked back - LVat the town was then, and saw what » no wwwa r he felt thankful that he had Ln nennitted to take part in the work of promoting the welfare of the district. He M always done hi 3 best for the town, tfjiife thanking them for their vote, he ailed* them not to forget that his late MifliiMZtte had done a great deal towards ' oromotmg th« passage of the different Jilla through Parliament, and to remem- . Berand appreciate his services. To Mr. - jfjjler, in the Legislative Council, they iere especially indebted, for it was through j lis tact that the BQI enabled them to - Borro* 150,000 was not thrown out. jlr. Jones, M.H.R., said that he was jorceV entitled to the generous vote of fljjmht accorded to him. was hi 3 duty a their representative to perform such service, hat he had unfortunately been ibfe to do hut little for them. He wished flint be coold tell them that he had 1 jaiated in reducing the taxation that had J Jem imposed upon them by the present Government, then he might have had * something of which to feel proud. Mr. ■* Steward bad told them that it was exceedingly difficult to get money bills tfirougfc the House. Hi 3 (Mr. Jones') operience bore out that statement. No sooner was a loan bill introduced into Parliament than members cried out, "We cannot get our loan bills through, andjott shall not get yours." But it was rntao with the last Oamaru "Waterworks Looaßii It passed through the House of Representatives within five minutes, m'ththe assistance of his hon. colleague 3. (Ir. Shrimski); and, thanks to the interest - minced in the matter by the Hons. ynwiT. Miller and Campbell, it did not take mtjch longer to pa3s it through the ifigiilatiTO Council. As a citizen, he f congratulated them on having witnessed t6e fiht stage of the completion of the iciiema which had cost them so much care E anil money. It was valuable in many f c respects. Those who had large families sn! lived in smalLhouses had been compelled to tae, in some measure, the water hi 60m the Oamam Creek, which, as they all knew, was pregnant with all kinds of f impurities. Although the first water that - iadffowed into the reservoir was thick, jatin three or four weeks ail would be aitfe to- drink of the crystal stream all the way from the Waitaki. Qathemotion of Mr. Shrimski, seconded &j Jlr. Smnpter, a vote of thanks, accompanied by cheers, was accorded to the Mayor and Council. His Worship, in acknowledging the amgEment, asked the ratepayers to cheer- ~ My- assist the Council in maintaining the credit of the town. f Tha proceedings then terminated, and a ffiturn to town was made. lithe evening the Band of No. 1 Company turned oat and played a number of Elections on the Old Cricket Ground, while Jlr. Earle and others marked the oceaioa by liberal displays of fireworks. _