The Harper River Diversion.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17113, 7 April 1921, Page 6

The Harper River Diversion.

At a meeting of the Council of the Progress League yesterday, a- resolution was carried expressing the opinion that tho Government should without dela/ proceed with the permanent works for the diversion of the full normal flow of the Harper river into Lake Coleridge. The public are familiar by now, we expect, with the main facts relative to the fall in the Lake level, and to the temporary measures adopted by the Public "Works Department to make good tho drain upon the lake water. It is quite likely that the temporary work, reinforcing the natural sources of replenishment, will keep the lake at a level which will be quite sufficient for tho maintenance of the supply of power from the generating station. Nobody can say that it is unlikely. But the importance of. Coleridge to Canterbury is so great that no avoidable risk should be taken. It would be a calamity if the sources of power were to fail, so serious a calamity that the Public Works Department should, if necessary, go to considerable trouble and expense to avert the possibility of it. So far as can be ascertained, however, a safe level in the lake can bo ensured without much trouble, and at a comparatively trifling cost. The outside estimate of tho cost of the permanent diversion works is . only £IO,OOO. We are unablo to understand why the Department remains unwilling to do more than .maintain the temporary and precarious diversion upon which it has hitherto ueen relying. No clear official explanation has been published by the Minister, but we hope that when he has read the report of yesterday's meeting he will take the public quit© fully into hia' confidence. There is one feature of yesterdqy's discussion which deserves some attention, namely, the absence of any feeling except a desire to know the facts, and an honest wish that the Department shall relievo local anxiety by doing what appears to all the local investigators to be necessary in tho interests of safety. Nothing was said that can be construed into an attempt to make any kind of capital out of the situation. This is very 'satisfactory and encouraging, although we do not doubt that it will be very disappointing; to those people who have been endeavouring to turn the situation to party uses. Our morning contemporary, for example,' has been seeking to encourage people to believe that Canterbury is in this matter dealing with a hostile Government. "Canterbury has learned "by long experience," it said a couple of days ago in a reference to the Coleridge question, "that it must fight " strenuously to secure even the barest " justice from a Government whose in"terests and whose support lie mostly "in the North Island." It would ba anything but advantageous to Canterbury if those who are working for its welfare were animated, even slightly, "by such unintelligent and demode rancour as is evident in the sentence we have quoted. Yesterday's meeting showed, fortunately, that these oldfashioned Liberal partisans carry no weight with responsible people.