MORE ABOUT WATER SUPPLY.

Auckland Star, Volume III, Issue 610, 30 January 1872, Page 2

MORE ABOUT WATER SUPPLY.

To the Editor of the Evening Star. Sin, —If the Onehunga springs were up in the Waitakerei ranges, or any land sufficiently high to force it to Auckland (and I was a capitalist), why I should feel inclined to invest my capital in bringing that water to Auckland —that is, providing the undertaking wasn't managed in a similar way to the Auckland and Onehunga railroad. But, as Waitakerci water is only about suitable to wash a cart with, being surface water and no natural Alteration about it, why I shan't willingly invest any of my money in bringing scum and rotten wood washings to Auckland, and if the bush is not kept on the tributary creeks, why the supply (like the creeks at the Thames) will be reduced in no time. It is my belief it will be an expensive, abortive, unsatisfactory undertaking. There is a difference in beginning a job and finishing one. Certainly some one suggests supplying Onehunga by that route, but what they will clear out of that flourishing locality I don't think will amount to much. If Auckland wants good water she will have to pump it up any how, and in my simple judgment the Onehunga springs produce the most genuine stuff. There are several springs within half a mile, producing any amount of splendid, sold, transparent drinking water, and not thickened by freshets and as soft to wash with as rain water. Somebody talks about paying £5,000 for the mill pond in the middle of the public road ; Government has plenty of land there with the springs on it, and I suppose if they sink a hole lower than tide mark, the water will run into that instead of running into the tide. The trouble then is to get it into Auckland. Make a reservoir as high up One Tree Hill as necessary and pamp it up there. But, mind, begin on a limited scale first; or I should think it might be taken along the railroad anil then puaiped up into reservoirs in Auckland, it would find its way to the shipping easy at all events. But there are diggings in the world where all the water is pumped up higher and further than One Tree Hill from OneImnga; and I would suggest, if water is to be brought into the city, to bring in the real genuine stuff. This is an old song, I'm aware, but an old song suits an old man, so pray excuse him. Wow, as far as my wants about water are concerned, I want no water company established. I have a well and tank on my little patch, and I presume a good many more might do the same, but it seems to me that the majority of people are slow to improve and repair without compulsion. However, they will find it costs something when a water company brings it to the door. If this is worth chinking up with, 1 return you my thanks for its insertion, and all honor to you, Mr Editor, for your advocacy of the laborers' 8 hour movement. I wish I could pass the compliment on your fellow tradesmen, who seem to me to understand " whipping the devil round a stump," as the Yankees say, better than they do " doing as they would be done by."

Yours, &c,

Frederick Davidson,