Nelson Provincial Gazette – 1867 – No. 26

Page 119

✨ Report on Melbourne municipal sanitation

119

at present the powers of the Corporation in such matters are limited to outside the building lines, except, indeed, as a Board of Health, in which character it has some more extended power, but under an Act too complex to be really workable. A new and better digested Act relating to the public health has passed all its stages in both Houses of our local Parliament, and only awaits the settlement of some small difference between the branches of the Legislature to become law. It gives power to contract for the cleansing of yards, privies, &c., as well as of streets and public places, and upon its coming in force it is intended by the City Council to include all these in one contract, and to extend the contract time, to, say five years, so as to justify the contractor in incurring the large pecuniary outlay necessary for the plant requisite to carry out so extensive an undertaking. The cost of the first five or ten years will undoubtedly be considerable, and will probably render necessary an increase in the rating of the city to an extent of perhaps two-pence in the pound, but the saving to householders, as well as the convenience of getting rid of refuse, and the comfort resulting from greater cleanliness, will cause the additional taxation to be cheerfully borne, and the increased value of the manure will, as is the case in England, eventually be a source of revenue to the Corporation.

I forward as a book parcel by this mail a copy of the specification recently adopted for street cleansing, and a copy of the new Health Bill, to which I have referred, and I have to assure you of the satisfaction which it will at all times afford me to furnish any similar information so far as may be in my power.

I am, &c.,

E. G. FITZGIBBON,

Town Clerk.

Town Hall, Melbourne, June 12.

P.S.—I greatly regret that this letter was not finished in time for the mail by the Rangitoto.

I may now add, that the accepted tender for the cleansing of the city for the ensuing twelve months is for the sum of £4,950.

June 26, 1867.

Printed under the authority of the Provincial Government, Nelson, by NATION & LUCKIE, Waimea-street, Nelson, Printers for the time being to the said Government.