At the Soundarya Mahal, George Town, a public meeting of the Hotel and Restaurant keepers of Madras was held yesterday evening to protest against the cutting off of the free allowance of water to their premises, by the Corporation. There was a large gathering of the Hotel-keepers, and of sympathisers, including Messrs G. Guruswami Chetti, Abdul Majid Sharar, and Dr. Rama Kamath. Mr. Rangaswami Iyengar who presided protested in emphatic terms against the new proposal of the Corporation in cutting off free water supply to hotels in spite of the fact that they were paying taxes and rates under various heads, both directly and indirectly. He said the proposal would seriously jeopardise public health and sanitation, and it was gross injustice also to single out the Coffee Hotels and Restaurants for a specially shabby treatment as compared with that applied to others. There must be he emphasised an irresistible demand that justice and fairplay should prevail and it was his confidence in the sense of justice and fairplay of the councillors, which kept them hopeful of the issue of the controversy still that a satisfactory solution would be found.
