THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3101, 20 August 1913, Page 64

THE WEEK.

Last week it rained for three days without ceasing for one instant, and the last day was worse than the first. In consequence there were floods on the Taieri, and slips on the railway lines, and a stoppage of electric. power, and owing to certain performances of the Harbour Board the Leith stream invaded the homes of several citizens in a most unusual and disagreeable manner. The water ran waistdeep over the road, so it is said, and flooded the houses to such a extent that the inhabitants had to flee to some drier place of refuge, in spite of the storm and darkness, and when it receded it left behind the usual deposit of two or three inches of silt. River silt makes most excellent soil no doubt, but one does not, as a rule, wish to grow potatoes in one’s front parlour. Now everybody is talking about '“that Harbour Board,” and wanting to know why, if they were going to build a conduit to carry the Leith away, they didn’t build it a little bigger. TJie high tide, of course, helped in the general effect, and so did a clay bank or something of the kind that is being built round Lake Logan, but they should have known all about the tides, and that rivers will be rivers and rise rapidly in rainy weather, generally choosing the most inconvenient time for doing so. Everybody makes mistakes sometimes, it is true. The trouble is that when corporations make them they are always such big ones, and so expensive, too, and we poor ordinary folk have to pay for them. Then there is Waipori, It is a most disconcerting thing to have the light suddenly fade away when one is seated at the dinner-table, and in the middle of one’s best story. There was a universal groan of “Waipori again!’’ and then such a groping for candles and lamps that had Eeen stowed away in all sorts of odd corners under the assurance made after j the last break that everything would really ;be all right in the future. This time it i was a break in a pipe-line, whatever that j may be. Perhaps it couldn’t be helped; | but it is no wonder that users of electric power are getting distinctly restive over ■ the recurrent stoppages, if it were only ! a question of light in private houses, or | even of trams, one might growl and put j up with the inconvenience, though it is I no light matter to some people to be ; faced with the alternative of a cab-drive ior a long walk in the pelting rain. It ! is when it comes to a question of the stoppage of industries depending on electric power, with a consequent loss of profits and wages, that the thing becomes . serious. We have paid highly for our i electrical scheme, and we expect to get 1 our money’s worth. Are we doing so? “They want a few women on the council,” cry some indignant dames. “Men don’t know how to be economical.” Well, I don’t know whether women would be of much assistance in a matter of pipe-lines or tidal scours, but one cannot help thinking that they would not have passed the plans of a building without seeing that there were windows and a staircase and proper kitchen accommodation, and that the entrance to the bathing-boxes was not in the first place through the tearoom. And I wonder whether a council with women on it would go about plant- , ing trees with one hand, and with the other chopping down any, however beautiful, thaWlare to overhang the street by so much as an inch. Perhans they would. There is no accounting for the idiosyn- ; crasies of human nature. Anyway, if we | are not pleased with the present state of ' things, the remedy is in our own hands. ! Manv of us are quite eligible to stand j for the council. Only somehow we seem 1 quite happy to leave the responsibilities l on manly shoulders. Perhaps we have a ' feeling that running a city is not so easy I as it looks, and we mightn’t make such 1 a success of it after all, whereas at nre- ' sent we can shrug our shoulders and say, i “Oh, these men!” and think how much ‘ better we could do it if we had the t chance. ELIZABETH.