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Have you read Dr. CLARK's evidence given at the last meeting of this Commission?
-Yes.
Have you observed the suggestions he made before the Commission. Do you concur in the suggestions made by him-generally, I mean to say?-Yes, there is really nothing I wish to take exception to. There are one or two minor points, about the height of buildings, but that is mere detail. Generally, I concur with him.
Do you think the improvements suggested by Dr. CLARK should be put in hand at once ?-They are practically the improvements recommended by the Board in August
last year.
Hon. T. H. WHITEHEAD-Would you include in the appendix the resolution referred to bearing upon and having reference to the improvements recommended?
The CHAIRMAN-If these improvements are carried out, are you of opinion that the place would be in a fairly sanitary condition?
WITNESS-Speaking generally, yes. Of course there is some bad property in the Colony, but it will not stand many more years.
Will it have to come down?—It will come down. If they make a start on the lines Dr. CLARK indicated in his evidence I think things will go on well for a time. There is one matter he touched upon, that is, the subject of private lanes, on which I should like to make a few reinarks. He quoted-page 6 of his evidence-from the Public Health Act of 1875, section 160. That states that the Local Authority has power to take over and maintain any lane, but the Local Authority insists first upon such lanes being properly sewered, paved, and channelled. Dr. CLARK says he recom- mends that legislation be introduced to compel the owners of lanes to put them in a sanitary condition or, failing that, to hand them over to the Government after they have been paved and channelled. Of course if a nuisance exists in a private lane the law provides for dealing with it under the Public Health Act, 24 of 1887. What I want to point out is this. It is not absolutely compulsory in England to hand over a private lane or street to the Local Authority, but it is compulsory that the owner should pave it, channel it, and sewer it. That is not compulsory here and it ought to be. A man has a private lane here and it is practically like his own garden; he can do what he likes with it. He need not pave it or channel it. He can grow vegetables in it if he likes, and he can carry on all sorts of trades in it and block up the place and practically render it useless so far as light and air are concerned to the houses adjoining, which only obtain access to light and air through that lane.
Would you recommend that these lanes be taken over and made Government lanes?—Not absolutely, but it ought to be compulsory that the owners should pave them, channel them, and sewer them, and with that compulsion the sanitary maintenance of them would not be a difficult matter. Now it is practically impossible to maintain them in a sanitary condition. No lanes ought to be taken over by the Government which are less than 15 feet in width. As the law stands at present, by section 52 of Ordinance 15 of 1889, "Every person who shall erect fronting a private lane any new domestic building, other than a godown inhabited by such caretakers as are necessary for the protection of the property, shall so place the said building that along its entire frontage there shall be an open space of at least seven and a half feet in width, measured from the centre line of such lane." The effect of that section is that where a lane at present exists of a less width than fifteen feet, upon rebuilding any houses fronting upon that lane, the front of that house must be set back from the centre line at a distance of 7 feet 6 inches. If the two opposite houses in a lane of less than fifteen feet are pulled down and rebuilt you get in front of these houses, instead of a narrow lane, a lane of fifteen feet in width. That section does not apply to public lanes. If the Government took over a lane of not less than fifteen feet in width and houses were subsequently built there it would be for the Government to make such arrangements