THAT RESERVOIR SITE.

Observer, Volume XXVIII, Issue 27, 21 March 1908, Page 2

THAT RESERVOIR SITE.

Thegßarity of Christian Charity,

THE parishioners of St. Sepulchre's are affording the public an instructive example of the way in which an ecclesiastical institution can act when its own interests are prejudicially affected. The interests of the city and the of the citizens require that k a new reservoir shall be constructed in the neighbourhood of Khyber Pass Koad. Necessarily, the work must be done in that vicinity, for there only can the reservoir be placed at a sufficient elevation to give the requisite pressure for the distribution of the water. And, unfortunately, the only suitable site is that occupied by St. Sepulchre's vicarage. Therefore, the City Council has given notice that it purposes to acquire the vicarage property under the Public Works Act.

The necessity is admittedly an awkward one to the parishioners. For the last twenty-three years they have known the present vicarage as the centre of their parochial work, and for incumbent and worshippers it is doubtless very convenient to have the parsonage situated right beside the church. Such a juxta-position is, however, not indispensable — in fact, it is not in every instance that it is at all possible. The City authorities have carefully gone into the question, and find that there is no other single property in the district which can be made' available for the reservoir. It might be supposed, therefore, that the parishioners would bow to the inevitable, accept the compensation that will fall to them in due course, and find a habitation for their vicar elsewhere.

But the people of St. Sepulchre's are not to be so easily placated. The needs of the public do not appeal to them when they involve a sacrifice of their own convenience. On the contrary—and here it is that the exemplification of Christian charity comeß in

— they are disposed to shed their brothers' blood on a rather liberal scale rather than forego one drop of their own. Consequently, a deputation from the parishioners waited upon the City Council last week to protest against the proposed confiscation of parish property. When it was pointed out in reply that the vicarage site was the only property available of sufficient area, the deputation submitted an alternative. There were a number of back yards and gardens of private properties which, if the Council was prepared to seize them under the Act, would give the necessary land for itsreservoir. Why not take over those back yards, and let the church property alone ?

More delightful instance of vicarious sacrifice has not been proposed for many a long day. To avoid the taking of one property, eight or ten others were to be truncated in such a manner as to render them practically useless to their owners and occupiers. Had Mayor Myers been given to sermonising or to cynical remonstrance, he might well have reminded the representatives of the church of some of the precepts inculcated weekly from their own pulpits, and asked that these should be applied to the case in hand. Mr Myers, however, lost the opportunity of improving the occasion, and contented himself with intimating that the taking ot the vicarage site appeared to be the only possible solution of the reservoir problem. And so St. Sepulchre's will probably lose its property.

It is impossible bo avoid sympathising with the parish upon the inconvenience which it will suffer. Such inconvenience will, however, be materially mitigated by the payment ot compensation, by means of which it should not be impossible to secure another vicarage, though possibly in a less central position. But the proposal to protect a wealthy Church corporation by hacking the property of private individuals in a way that no monetary solatium could adequately recoup, smacked rather of heathen ferocity than of the charity that suffereth long and is kind.