THE Otago Daily Times. "Inveniam viam aut faciam." DUNEDIN, MONDAY, JUNE 27, 1864.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22608, 27 June 1935, Page 2

THE Otago Daily Times. "Inveniam viam aut faciam." DUNEDIN, MONDAY, JUNE 27, 1864.

SEVENTY-ONE YEARS AGO.

It is difficult to account for the apathy which pervades most Colonial communities in reference to sanitary and social arrangements. It is conceivable that a population, partaking to a great extent of a pilgrim character, with friends and relatives distant from them, and to return to whom is a settled purpose after the man has "made his pile," should be indifferent to political affairs, involving, as they frequently do, abstract theories, and the details of profound propositions in Political Economy. Years may elapse before the benefit of any law, however just or beneficent, can be developed, and it therefore usually requires an abnegation of private profit and comfort to enter into a Colonial political career. Apathy in politics then may be accounted for on the score that most persons imagine they have but a passing interest in the colonies, and they are too much absorbed in private business to give attention to that which is purely public. But where health and comfort are concerned, the public interest is identified with that cf the individual, and what is conducive to the welfare of the whole becomes the duty of every member of the community to forward. ... Every man who puts up or owns a house in a city built of such inflammable materials as Dunedin, should take a share in the Water Supply Company, in order to combine with health and domestic comfort comparative security from fire.