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THE POLLUTION OF THE DEE.

THE REVISION COURT.

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REVISING BARRISTERS COURTS.

--------|BOROUGH PETTY SESSIONS.

COUNTY PETTY SESSIONS.

WREXHAM RURAL SANITARY AUTHORITY.

|WREXHAM SCHOOL BOARD.

-----------. WREXHAM AND DISTRICT…

MUNICIPAL MATTERS.

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--T terms and conditions as those upon which Mr. JAMES holds office. One or two advocated that the future Clerk should give the whole of his time to the office, but surely there is something preposterous in the idea that a small municipality of 10,000 inhabitants should require the whole time of one man to look after its work. There are municipalities four times the size of Wrex- ham, and so situated that the work of the Clerk is more than four times that of Wrexham, and even these do not require that their Clerk should give the whole of his time to the duties of the office. All knew that the greater part of the work is such as can be done by assistants, and that the real work of the Town Clerk is more of the nature of supervision. To ask a man to give the whole of his time to the work would be to ask him to do it very slowly, and to do the mechanical as well as the supervisory part of it. Even then the office would be a partial sinecure. Moreover, what man of ability would give his time and talents to the Corporation for the sum which they, in justice to the ratepayers, could offer him ? It was mentioned that Wrexham wants an Improvement Act, &c., and that a gentleman who devoted the whole of his time to the work might, in promoting such a bill, save the Council a large amount of money. The probability is that the man who did not give the whole of his time to the Council would, were he an efficient Clerk, save the Council a similar sum. But allow Lug fuvmov argument to be true, it must be admitted that the procuring of an Im- provement Act would only take a few years at the most, and what is the Clerk to do with his surplus time when he has obtained the Act ? Several other reasons were named in favour of the future Clerk devoting his whole time to the office, but they are of small weight and will not balance those to be produced against such a course. There are, undoubtedly, men in the town who are quite competent to fill the office which is about to be made vacant, and who possess the manliness to pursue successfully their duty to the town and the Council notwithstanding local influence. If such is not the case the morality of Wrexham's leading men is rather low. The second subject of importance is the pro- posed new streets. The question has been discussed so often that most people are tired of it. The question now is not should the streets be made or should they not," but are they to be made, or are they not ?" There are one or two improvements in this direction which are not only desirable but necessary, such as the opening up of Hill-street or some other such street, to relieve the traffic of Town Hill. Nothing can be done unless the preliminary legal notices be given, and the Council commit themselves to only a small outlay by authorising those notices to be given. Of course there is a great outcry about present bad times, &c., but those who use this as an argument against everything necessary or un- necessary scarcely know the nature of the argu- ment they are using. All improvements are paid for with money borrowed for 30 years, and in reality there is no greater burden put on the ratepayers of to-day than on those of 20 or 30 years hence. The sum which new streets will cost will not be raised immediately, but propor- tionate sums raised each year for 20 years. Therefore the cry about hard times, &c., is, to a great extent, delusive. People of foresight say that hard times are just when improvements should be made, because labour and material arc considerably cheaper, and it is beneficial to the working classes to open up to them means of employment. People who argue in this way argue correctly, and are really those who protect the interests of the ratepayers. The "hard times" argument, when persistnntly used, is but a subterfuge. Those who plead hard times now will plead the high price of labour and material when good times arrive, and thus they would procrastinate from time to time and prevent the execution of anything and everything. Our fear is that the Council will postpone the cutting of necessary streets until a time when the work will cost the ratepayers 10, 20, and perhaps 50 per cent. more than such work would cost at the present moment.

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