Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 1879.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 654, 19 March 1879, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 1879.

In our report of the proceedings of the Borough Council, held last evening, will be found Mr. Gkorcje Black's communication respecting a water supply for Gisborne. Much and urgently as this is needed, we fear that if we are to be- guided by Mr. Black's estimate of cost, we shall have to wait a long time before the Borough of Gisborne will be able to afford the outlay. To bring water from the Repongaere lake will cost £18,G13. To bring it half a mile from the town site will be and four miles up .£12,734. It is quite evident then that whether the water comes from the Repongaere lake or from the Waimaita River, the cost will be far in excess of our present means. Mr. Black offers no other suggestions. Does not so much as hint how the rain-fall may be economised ; whether a series of oln*aply-eonstructed cisterns would not answer for the present ; says nothing of the feasibility of raising water by wind power ; says nothing, in fact, to guide the Council, excepting that which Mr. Black well knew the Council could not accept. Well, then, some one else than Mr. Black will have to be looked for. With an enormous watershed ; with at seasons a heavy rainfall, with a river on each side of the town, with water probably under

our feet, does it not appear singular that the only suggestions a practical engineer like Mr. Black can propose is, to bring water from a muddy lake at a cost of over £18,000, or from a river half a mile distant, at a cost- of nearly £1 6,000. The Borough Council say that it cannot exceed an expenditure of £6000 or £7000. Mi*. Black was told this pretty plainly, and it would naturally have been thought that, after making the preliminary inspections, he would have said, " Gentlemen, it cannot be done for the money." Instead of which he draws a cheque for something approaching £100 ; goes to Auckland, when, after some days, lie forwards to Gisborne a report which he knew well the Council could not afford to adopt.

A pkoposal has been made in Wellington that a theatrical performance be given next Sunday evening, at the Theatre Boyal. This extraordinary proposal has this excuse, and no other can we learn : . The proceeds are intended to be applied to the relief of those who have suffered from the Kaitangata mine explosion. But even this will not palliate so grave an innovation upon the proprieties which, setting religion, for the moment, on one side, are due to Sunday observance. The clergy of the various Churches in Wellington have met, and the Rev. A. Reid and Archdeacon Stock were appointed to wait on the manager of the " Uncle Tom's Cabin Company." The manager has made no promise, but we presume the voice of the public will be so strong that no theatrical company, looking for future patronage, will dare to ignore it. But clergymen themselves, in these strange times in which we live, do such extraordinary and hitherto unheard-of things — "play such fantastic tricksbefore high heaven " — that their power to control either the moral or religious feelings, we fear, is rapidly passing away. Here we have Archdeacon Thokpe preaching to his congregation in St. Paul's Church, ac Wellington, upon a Public Works Statement. Our readers may be curious to know what might be the text which could be made applicable to the subjectWell, a text, by a little ingenious perversion of words can be made to suit any conceivable object. In the case under notice, the Ven. Archdeacon selected the verse commencing, " And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things."

Commenting on what cannot be considered other than a gross desecration of of the Sabbath by Archdeacon Torpe as that contemplated by the " Uncle Tom's Cabin Company," the Lyttelt«n Times says : — " Were St. Paul alive, no one probably would be more surprised than himself at the use of these words as the basis of an elaborate clerical criticism of a Public Works and Immigration Policy in New Zealand. St. Paul very appropriately draws an illustration from the Olympic Games and applies to our spiritual life. One of the modern successors of that great Apostle founds on the text an ecclesiastical protest against intemperance in railways and immigration, and against sundry other breaches of what parsonically he deems sound political economy. But, like many other critics, he tells us we are wrong, but does not say what is right. He gives us no idea of what constitutes, in his eyes, a religious railway, or when immigration becomes heretical. His view of political economy is, as we shall presently show, very vague and superJicial. We have nodoubtthat Archdeacon Thorpe is a very good man, and anxious in his special vocation to do all the good he can ; but, seriously speaking, we put it to him whether a preacher is the proper person to criticise the administration of public works, and whether the pulpit is the proper platform for the delivery of that criticism. What would have been thought of Mr. Macandrew if, on August 27, 1878, when an attentive Parliament had assembled to hear his Public Works Statement, he had launched into a lecture on Erastian principles, or even favoured his audience with his views on the eternity of punishment 1 What Lord Macaulay wrote of Government in relation to the Church, .equally applies to the Church in relation to the Government. He thought the Government answers its main end best when it is constructed with a single view to that and, and he gave the following familiar illustrations : — " A blade which is designed both to sha\e and to carve will certainly not shave so well as a razor, or carve so well as a carving knife. An academy of painting, which would also be a bank, would, in probability, exhibit very bad pictures and discount very bad bills. A gas company, which would also be an infant school society, would we apprehend, light the streets ill, and teach the children ill." Mr. Thorpe cannot properly be at the time Minister of Religion and Minister of Public Works. He would not do credit to his faith, and he would not be justified by his works."