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they should not be required to pay rates. I would briefly call attention to the fact that the water rates have not only to meet the expenditure of the supply of water for domestic purposes but also for fire service, flushing sewers, watering streets, &c., from which every resident more or less derives some benefit.

38. Speaking generally, there is not the slightest doubt that from a sanitary point of view a constant supply of water should be laid on to or be readily obtainable for use in all premises.

39. The full appreciation by the public of the necessity of checking abuse and misuse of water may take some time and though it is a very different matter introducing a constant supply into premises occupied by some 120,000 persons from what it is where the population is only 15,000 or 20,000, I would point to the very material reduction in the consumption of water that has taken place in recent years in cities and towns in England and express a hope that the public generally will before long shew that they are not behind the residents in those cities and towns in their endeavours to check unnecessary waste.

40. The number of meters now in use is 188, and the quantity of filtered and unfiltered water supplied by meter has been 108,834,000 gallons and 71,856,000 gallons respectively.

41. Applications for the construction of new services and the repair of existing ones have been received in 377 cases.

42. Diagrams shewing the hourly consumption of water during periods of 24 hours are attached. Appendix D.

43. Tabular statements giving information respecting the quantity of water in the reservoirs and that supplied to different districts during the year 1893 (which were omitted from the last report), and during the past year will be found in the appendices A., A1., B., and C.

44. Maintenance of Sewers.-The sewers and storm water drains have as far as practicable been maintained in a satisfactory condition during the past year without any exceptional expenditure.

45. That complaints have been received of the smell arising from some of the storm water drains I am fully aware, but it must be borne in mind that so long as decomposing matter is discharged into sewers or drains, smells are inevitable and in order to avoid them it is absolutely necessary that not only the public sewers but also each and every house drain must be so arranged as to permit of their contents being discharged before decomposition sets in, and further care should be taken not to store sewage up on private premises till it attains a state of decomposition and becomes so offensive that it can no longer be endured in close proximity to human habitations, and then discharge it down a drain.

Everybody knows that any fluid that has a strong odour whether it be cabbage water, otto of roses, or anything else, will carry with it that odour wherever it goes, and if foul smells are not to be emitted from sewer ventilators it is of primary importance that the sewage discharged into the sewers should be fresh.

46. Difficulty is at present experienced in preventing foul smells arising from the large storm water drains on account of their large capacity and the small flow in them during the dry season, and this has been somewhat aggravated during recent years by the dilatory manner in which the recon- struction of defective and insanitary house drains and their connection with the new sewerage system has been proceeded with. The whole of the house drains should be put in a thoroughly sanitary condition and connected with the new sewers without delay. It must be remembered the new system of sewers has been designed to be practically self-cleansing with the dry weather flow, but so long as these sewers are deprived of half the dry weather flow owing to the house drains being unconnected with them it cannot be a cause of surprise to any thoughtful person that the full advantage of the system should not be gained. And further dilatory procedure in the disconnecting of the house-drains from the storm water drains only aggravates the nuisance that has existed for years in connection with these drains by reducing the dry weather flow in them, and the polluting of the sub-soil by sewage escaping from many of them.

47. It is hardly conceivable after the various reports and discussions that have been recorded that there should exist any such idea that the new system of sewers had diverted the storm water from the old drains, and yet I find it recorded in the mail issue of the Daily Press, June 27th, 1894, that at a meeting of the Sanitary Board a member stated that the carrying out of the new system diverted storm waters of the Colony from the old fashioned storm water drains by which alone these drains were kept in order. It is interesting to note that in the opinion of this member the flow of storm water is necessary to keep these drains in order. This I have always contended is the case so long as they receive sewage, and their inevitable condition during the dry season of the year when there is practically no storm water must be insanitary. That condition is one of the main reasons why I have always advocated diverting the sewage but not the storm water from the old storm water drains.

48. During the past year various questions relating to the introduction of the separate system and the advisability of having open drains throughout the greater part of the City have been again brought forward in most cases by anonymous writers.

One member of the Sanitary Board, however, stated that in his opinion no drains should be laid under the floor of any house and if it was not possible to adopt any other course than to bring it through the house the pipe should be laid above the floor. That gentleman, however, did not explain how the difficulty of many of the cook-house floors being level with or below the remaining portion of the ground floor of the house was to be got over in view of the fact that water will not run up hill.