The Star. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1896.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5500, 27 February 1896, Page 2

The Star. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1896.

The whole tenor of the excellent addresses that have just been delivered by the member for Riccarton may be concisely stated. It is that a Parliamentary representative may give a loyal support to his party, and yet preserve his absolute independence. Mr G. W. Russell's position is that while he has given to the Ministry an unswerving adherence in connection with the advocacy of Liberal measures,, he hasheld himself free to differ upon matters of detail. That of course is an attitude that as a party man he has a perfect right to assume, and it is quite clear that the bulk of his constituents will continue to approve of the principle he has laid down. At the ,same time, Mr Russell has taken care to point out one of the prominent evils attendant upon "Party Government" in its" present form, and it is this :— The policy of the Opposition often manifests itself in attempted catch - votes. Sideissues are artfully raised with t^he view of entrapping some section of the members, who may then, and frequently do, find themselves in the anomalous position of having to vote against their utterances, or of avoiding the division altogether. As to the policy of the immediate future, which concerns tlie people more nearly than what is past, we are not disposed to join with Mr Russell in laying any stress upon its formulation ■" before the new Ministers had joined the Cabinet," since the means of communication are easy and rapid, and there certainly is no reason to suppose that the incoming men were not consulted.

With many of the progressive features outlined by Mr Russell we are in accord, and we believe that they will be brought into effect at no distant date. At tho same time we are not over-anxious for rushing reform, seeing that there is in such cases so strong a reactive tendency. We hold that firm and steady progress is the best thing for the country, and that in this way such large questions as the absorption of surplus labour will best be dealt with. Nor are we altogether at one with the complaint that far larger sums, have been spent upon public works in other parts of the country than in Canterbury, for the simple reason that the undeveloped condition of other parts of New Zealand has necessitated this ; and Mr Russell, as a fair-minded man, is constrained to give the Government every credit for the prudence and ability with which it has administered the Public Works Fund. At the same time the member for Riccarton will' be abundantly justified in urging upon the Government the allocation of. a fair proportion of the available money in the establishment of special settlements in this ' provincial district. And here, indeed, comes in the crucial quesr tion. On the >one hand it is urged that there shall be no borrowing, with the qualification that "it might be necessary to borrow in small sums for the purchase of Native lands and land improvement ;" while on the other hand there are demands that constitute "large orders," and that must involve the provision of a correspondingly large amount of capital. But be the cost what it may, if the will of the people is clearly expressed, the fulfilment will not.be distant.

The details of the investigation made by a representative of this journal in connection with the outbreak of typhoid fever,' which were published in our issue of yesterday, have laid bare some unpleasantj facts. Everybody knows, now-a-days, that such diseases as typhoid fever are in a very large measure preventible, and now, everybody also knows that some of the more obvious means of prevention have Tbeen absolutely neglected. There are two leading questions that present themselves to an investigator in a matter of this sort:— What is the condition of the drainage in the immediate neighbourhood ? and Where does the milk supply come from ? With the last of these two questions we have already dealt, and it has been proved up to the hilt that the City Council and the local bodies generally have left undone some of the more important things that they ought to have done. The City Council stands condemned of long-standing negligence by its own report, and it has aggravated the offence by deliberately shelving the matter for a further period, notwithstanding the fact that the state of affairs revealed even by a cursory examination constituted an imperative demand for instant and vigorous action.

With regard to the other branch of the subject, the condition of the drainage, not even the most* optimistic person could honestly deny that the state of affairs is profoundly unsatisfactory. There are stenches in the city so well defined, so

solid, that they might be resolved into geometric shapes. They are so dense that — as is sometimes said of a London foe one might cut chunks out of them. The most casual observer of the side channels will see- numbers of places where long hollow stretches hold the contaminated contents for slow evaporation, whereby the air is filled with deadly germs. There are innumerable breakages in the concrete that form so many poison traps ; and as for any general system of flushing that, apparently, has not even been dreamed of. It is anotable fact that of thirty-one cases of typhoid fever admitted to the hospital between the dates Jan. 10 and Feb. 24, no fewer than- thirteen were from within tho city boundaries. We will emphasise what our representative had to say, in this connection, by reproducing it : — " A visifcto the parts of the city from which the Christchurch patients came revealed quite sufficient cause in the local surroundings to account to the lay mind for .the- outbreak. In almost every instance; the side channels were in a very filthy condition. House slops and soapsuds were lying stagnant in many places two and three inches in depth, whilst in others the gutters had run dry or the liquid had evaporated, leaving a disgusting slimy sediment. In one or two places, the concrete channelling was cracked, and there, as was to be expected, a fetid mass of filth had collected. Although most of the streets are well provided with artesian wells, the water does not appear to be used for flushing purposes in the manner that might be expected. In some cases the back premises and private drains leading to the side channels were; in a' filthy condition, and in j"a' locality from which two cases were admitted -a, yard used as a stand for a number of Chinese hawkers' carts was in I anything but a creditable state." If that is not enough to rouse the Council to a sense of its responsibility, and its duty as conserver of the public health, it is past praying for.