The Water Works and the Common Council

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THE WATER WORKS AND THE COMMON COUNCIL.

The Common Council, by a decisive vote, have refused to sanction an additional expense of $135,000, asked for by the Commissioners at the instance of the Contractors, for changing the canal into a conduit. The wisdom of their decision will be apparent to every one who compares the two reports which formed the basis of the action of the Board. The majority report evaded the only question at issue. The very point referred to the Committee to investigate, namely, whether the sum proposed was proportioned to the costliness of the alteration, is quietly referred back to the Commissioners—as if a judge should say to a party in a suit, "you, sir, are conversant with this matter, and I will therefore delegate to you the duty of deciding on its merits." The minority report, on the other hand, went into statistical proof that the granting of $135,000 would be a clear bonus to the contractors, of whom Dame Rumor¹ (leaving Ald. Douglass'² statement aside) asserts that they have made a good enough "pile" out of the city without this addition.

Be it remembered that in every instance the applications made to the Common Council on this subject have originated with the contractors. It was not that the citizens took any action in the matter, or that the Commissioners on behalf of the city deemed the construction of the conduit vital; but it was the contractors finding difficulties in making the canal, who asked for the contemplated change.

It was to accommodate them, not the city, that the Common Council were appealed to to sanction the deviation from the original plan. If they are under bonds to complete their original agreement, and will realise as much profit by adhering to it as by making the conduit as proposed at a higher price, why do they desire a change? Their anxiety on this point evidences that to construct the canal at $135,000 more would pay them better than adhering to the original contract. Their action in this matter furnishes evidence that they are conscious of the benefit they would derive from the alteration of plan.

If we rightly apprehend the figures of the minority report, it is clearly shown that, taking the difficulties and expense of the construction of the canal into account, the contractors can better afford to make the conduit than complete the canal at the present price; and that, instead of the city paying them extra for the alteration, they could afford to pay for the permission to effect the change.

The thanks of the public are eminently due to Alderman Kalbfleisch³ for his report. Of the many valuable services which he has rendered to the city during his career in the Board of Aldermen, this is by no means the least. But for his timely warning the late Board would probably have complied with the original demand of the contractors, and thus saddled the city with above half a million more than the works were warranted to cost; and in the present instance we owe it mainly to his effective protest that the Aldermen, in their anxiety to have a conduit built, did not at once vote the requested sum of $135,000, which his subsequent investigation has shown such ample reason for refusing.

Ald. Backhouse's⁴ speech opens up a view of the management of these works, not quite new to ourselves, though probably so to most of our readers. Mr. Backhouse is no Buncombe⁵ talker, but a man who knows and means and stands by what he asserts; and we await the rejoinder, which Mr. Prentice⁶ for his own sake must make, before commenting on the fruitful theme suggested by Ald. Backhouse's remarks.

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