To the Editor of the "Norru-Catna Dairy News."
Sir,—It is said that the Council is about to seek powers to buy out the Waterworks Company, and run the works as a municipal undertaking.
do not know of all the difficulties that there may be between the Waterworks Company and the Council, but I believe that those difficulties aire trivial iim the extreme and capable 6f ready solution at a round table conference, and, in any case, they are nothing to the colossal enterprise, of taking over and abolishing this old established British Company in Shanghai.
But the chief objection, from the public point of view, is that' the taking over of the Company, with all its plant and river boats ete., means an inevitable increase in the water rate. Public officials are not deterred by expense in quite the same manner as a Company, and, more especially if the Waterworks were run by the Public Work Department, it would mean. an immediate launching out on far flung schemes of frenzied construction work, magnificent fire extinction schemes of doubtful economic value, calculated to put out fires in 14 minutes instead of 15, and other utopian projects.
Mark my words, Sir, that if the Council takes over the Waterworks Company, within five years from now, either the ratepayers will have to find a huge deficit, or the water rates will be enormously increased. I am, etc., Common Sensz.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.