A MUNICIPALITY.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXIII, Issue 2723, 25 August 1868, Page 4

A MUNICIPALITY.

(to the editok of the independent.) Sm, — It is a Bhame that Wellington which ought to set a good example should be suffered to remain as it is, about the dirtiest and worst paved town in New Zoaland. Our only hope of a change for the better is iv getting the city formed into a nmuicipality with fuller powers and a better organisation than is possible under the present Town Board Act. It is all very well for Messrs Carpenter and Toomath to preach the gospel of selfishness, pure and simple, and " that every ratepayer should have his own rates spent in front of his own door," and thei'e are a few men in every place who would refuse to spend a shilling, let the object be ever so good, but the general feeling is that we must and ought to pay rates, and thatrthe main question is, how can these be best economised. Experience has shown this is attained by investing a chosen body of public spirited fellow citizens with corporate privileges and sufficient powers to comjjel every one to contribute a fair share towards an object essential to the good of the community. Granted that in Wellington a corporation would find itself possessed of limited means, this only shows the greater necessity for a wise and careful conservation and distribution of these means. Under the circumstances then, it is to be hoped that the Town Board will tako action to have the town formed into a municipality ; already a petition to that effect lias been signed, and the result of a not very orderly public meeting should not stand in the way ; at that meeting all sorts of subjects got muddled up together. Many of the most vociferous were not ratepayers at all, and the principal speaker was a non-resident, who spoke strongly against a measure he had as strongly advocated some years ago. I do the justice to my fellow citizens to believe that the great bulk of them are willing, even should it increase the rates a few shillings, to support a movement by which alone wo can hope to get clean, well-paved streets, glaring nuisances suppressed, and an end mado of the abominable cflluvia which, from one end of the town to the other, is undermining the constitutions, and in many cases carrying diseaso and death among old and young. — I am, &c, Ratepayer.