TOWN UTILITIES.

Southland Times, Issue 16688, 17 March 1911, Page 4

TOWN UTILITIES.

Yesterday, Mr Thomas Fleming, in the course of an interview, which is printed in another column, referred to the incredulity with which the statement was received in Britain that a town like Invercargill intended installing tramways before inaugurating up-to-date water supply and drainage systems. To anyone not understanding the circumstances it would certainly appear to be inexplicable that such a course should have been followed, but the position in which the community was placed provides an ample reason for the order in which it is intended to instal these important utilities. We believe that the greater importance of water and drainage has been realised by a large number of the people, and that, if it had not been for the formidable obstacles that barred the way, there would have been no need at this stage to explain why the rational and proper order of things in this instance has been departed from. The problem the people of Invercargill found themselves faced with was that the conflict of opinion was so pronounced in regard to the source from which an adequate water supply might be obtained that the probability of its being solved promised to take definite shape only in the dim and distant future. By one section it was urged that a gravitation supply from Dipton at a cost of about £IOO,OOO should be obtained; another section insisted that the sinking of a second well would meet the case, and yet another maintained that an inexhaustible artesian supply was obtainable for the seeking. The expense of inaugurating a gravitation supply was so great that the people might well pause before deciding that the scheme should be proceeded with, and especially when they were persistently being told that there was another proposition which had a great deal more to recommend it. While this doubt existed citizens were in a quandary, and in the meantime the tramways question began to make itself felt. The same difficulty of deciding on a system was not nearly so formidable in this instance, so rather than wait indefinitely until the Avater supply question had been settled, the people decided that the tramways should be proceeded with. That is exactly how the present anomalous state of things has arisen. The community realised that sooner or later a tramway system would have to be installed, and, there being no signs of a definite decision being arrived at in connection with a water supply, it simply agreed, in effect, that in. thn

meantime we may as well be doing something to cause the’ town to progress; the tramways are the next pressing need, so we will proceed with them. However, the point which has been noted in Britain will serve as an added incentive to have our ■water supply and drainage schemes put in order at the earliest possible opportunity, and for that reason Mr Fleming has done the town a service of no little value.