CO129-299 - Administrator Major Gen Gascoigne - 1900 [5-6] — Page 305

CCPX

Enclosure 2.

301

Hon.Colonial Secretary,

"Report on the latrine and urinal accommodation of

the City. Section E".

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The data given under the heading "Dry manure" include a popu- lation of 25,000 belonging to the 8 principal villages, but it must be borne in mind that, the present contracts for these villages combine the scavenging work with the conservancy work,so that the revenue derivable, by the Contractor, from this latter serves to very materially reduce the expenditure by the Government upon the forner the result being that the present contracts are let at purely nominal suns. If the revenue from the excreta is to be collected separately, there will be a large increase in the expenditure upon scavenging work.

This however is but a detail when compared with the fact that the estimate of revenue is based on the assumption "of the Government closing all private latrines" (appendix 9). In appendix 7 it will be seen that out of 689 latrine seats in the City of Victoria,no less than 513 are privately owned, and in appendix 9 paragraph 7 it is stated that the owners of private latrines receive from the Conservancy Contractor 25 cents a picul for the night-soil collected from these latrines. So that the proposal is to deprive these latrine owners of a considerable amount, of revenue which they at present derive from the sale of night soil. It is true that in section C. paragraph II it is suggested that the Government should resume

this property, but there is no mention of the cost of this resumption in the financial estimates, and seeing that the privately owned latrines comprise some of the most valuable

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property