, 1884-12-17
The Members rose from their seats.

The Members rose from their seats.
The Vice Governor thanked the Council
for the cordial welcome they had given
him, and would also take this opportunity
OF thanking them for the kind expressions
OF their feelings towards him which they
had adopted at the last meeting, feelings
which 1t was scarcely necessary for him to
say were reciprocated.
The Chairman then read a letter from
the Government concerning a cOmmunica.
ton received from the Ministry of Finances
i'll regard to the Draft Of Ordinance passed
in the Council last May concerning the
right OF lawyers to obtain fees and compen-
sation for their outlay in conducting public
suits and suits with grants of Beneficial.
The gist of the Ministry's letter was that
while the Ministry considered it desirable
that lawyers should be paid in the cases
mentioned, yet as the three islands formed,
SO far as the Upper Court was concerned,
but one Judicial sphere, the draft could not
be recommended for st. Croix alone, and
the Ministry must therefore wait till a
similar Draft was also passed for st. Tho
mas and St. John.
Judge NySsum, the newly elected mem
Der for the town of Frederiksted. was adj
mitted to a seat in the Council, after the
usual forms.
The Chairman stated that the second
item on the order Of the day was the question
Of furthering and eventually putting an
Interpolation from End Member for Frede.
rikstods Country District (HeWitt) as
follows:
Would the Government kindly explain
why tie enactments in s - of the Road
Ordinance rI9th June 1884 nave not been
obeyed, in as nue., rs the assignment has
not, at least as fan rs West End and
Princes Quarters areconrcrned, been made
by the Road Commissioners III conjunction
with the Road Inspectors.
Mr. He}citt said, that his reason for bring
ing forward this Interpolation was the
great amount Of dissatisfaction felt i'll the
West End Quarter with the way III which
the road repairs had been allotted.
The Road Ordinance states very precise
" that the allotments Of the roads for each
Quarter are 70 be drawn up by the Road
Commission IN conjunction with the Road
Inspectors. This had not been done. He
could see clearly lhe meaning Of the provi-
sion, it was that too much power should
not be placed in he hands OF one Commits
sio0pr- so that such Commissioner should
not be able to use his influence to promote
his own private interests. He did not
mean 5y this to say that such had been
done in the West End Quarter; but at the
same time a very great change had been
made in the distribution of the road re-
pairs Formerly the main roads counted
to the by. roads as > to !, now they were
valued at 5 to l.. Again the road from
Concordia past Wheel Of Fortune to West
End was counted as a by road, and five
feet Of it were allotted against one on the
other road to West End past Stony Ground.
Now on the latter road produce only WAS
carted, and for six months of the year there
was very little traffic on it, whereas the
main traffic was on the other, shorter, road.
He thought it a great injustice that 5000
feet Of the latter road should be set against
only 1000 on the former.
Another grievance was that the North
Side was too heavily, and not equally, taxed
i'll road work. Orange Grove, a small es-
tate, had for instance 1870 it., as much az
Mt. Victory, Nicholas and Pleasant Valley
all together, and Becksgroye had 12,426tt.,
nearly double that Of the estates just nam
ed. These things he considered hard. The
North Side estates give poor returns, yet
have to pay the same tax per acre as other
more fertile properties, this is hard enough,
but now they have the additional road work.
= he road repairs which had been taken off
estates on the South side had been put on
The North side properties, which never use
the southern roads.
Another wrong thing was that the road
work in Princes Quarter had been extend
ed eastwards into Kings Quarter, where
the roads were least used. 1t should have
been the reverse, the allotmentS in Kings