Wellington Independent SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1871.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3319, 14 October 1871, Page 2

Wellington Independent SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1871.

Through the action of Mr Mantell the city of Wellington is in clanger of suffering a great loss, or rather of losing a great public boon. The advantage of the public business of the city and the province being conducted inone building, centrally situated, has already been referred to in our columns. The amount paid annually for rent for our various public offices would, under judicious management, be more than sufficient to pay the interest and sinking fund of the capital required toerectnew buildings containing the adequate accommodation all under one roof. On the score of economy alone, therefore, the rejection of the clause in the Reclaimed Land Bill (through the exertions of Messrs Mantell, Pharazyn, and Rhodes), by which this great public want was to be met, is greatly to be deplored. The new buildings contemplated would have been an ornament to the city, and Jan enhancement to the value of the contiguous sections of the reclaimed land. But it is when we consider the great advantages accruing to the inhabitants generally, that we feel the immensity of the loss with which we are threatened. Thebare enumeration of the departments intended to be accommodated in the new buildings must convince the most sceptical. Crown Lands, Land Transfer, Survey, Superintendent's Office, Treasury, City Council, Registration of Births Deaths and Marriages, Registration of Deeds, Stamps, &o. — the prospect of all these being placed in a central part of the city, and all together, is one worthy of a supreme effort to realise. The loss both in time and money arising from their being scattered and far away from the business centre is too evident to be pointed out. A solicitor, for instance, in making a search in the Land

Office between the hours of , ten and four o'clock, makes such a sacrifice of the best of his timers to be but poorly compensated .even by the high charge he now makes against his client. Were that office situated along with the other public offices in the new building on the reclaimed land, he would be better paid by charging his client onethird of the present amount. In the same way it might be shown that the centralisation of other offices near the business centre, and the Post Office, Customs, Telegraph, and Harbor offices would be a very large saving both of time and money. The Investment Society is prepared, we understand, to advance on favorable terms the money required for the erection of suitable buildings. And the " unemployed," the " working men" of the city, who are the especial care of Mr Mantell, Mr Plimmer, et hoc gemtsomne must now see to whom it is owing if several thousand pounds' worth of labor are not in this way put before them. It matters not whether provincial institutions are retained or abolished, the accommodation described above must be required. Whether through the opposition of Superintendents Rolleston, Gillies, and Curtis, and the various Provincial Executive officers who have a seat in the Assembly, provincial institutions are retained in all their costly complexity, or through wiser and more economical counsels are simplified and cheapened, and ultimately abolished, there will be daily transactions necessitating recourse to the Crown Grant, Land Transfer, Registration, and Stamp Offices ; and whether a Stafford and a Curtis adhere to the views of ukra-prorincial-ism which they liave now embraced in the vain hope of getting into office, or return to their "old love," there will be births, deaths, and marriages to be recorded, meetings of the City Council to be held, and other demands for the accommodation arising from exigencies of a private and public character. The citizens should therefore be up and j doing, and raise an indignant protest against the action of the Legislative Council in over-riding the concurrent and deliberate decisions of the City Council, the Provincial Council, j and the House of Representatives. Every individual citizen is interested directly in getting this great public accommodation, as well as in securing a great public ornament to the city, and a greatly enhanced value for the land by this act acquired. A public meeting should be at once called, aud a resolution, in which the wishes of the inhabitants should be temperately but strongly conveyed, could not but have a good effect in tho view of a conference between the two branches of the Legislature — BUT NO TIME SHOULD BE LOST.