The Press Wednesday, April 7, 1926. The Waimakariri.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18659, 7 April 1926, Page 8

The Press Wednesday, April 7, 1926. The Waimakariri.

As the time draws near for the taking of a poll upon the Waimakariri River Trust's proposal to raise £200,000 for the deviation of the river and the provision of new protective works, it becomes necessary to remind the ratepayers of certain important facts. The first of these is that the Trust's energetic officials and advisers have omitted to show that the safety of the City really requires anything at all like the works projected. Everyone knows, and is ready to admit, that it is possible that the Waimakariri might break out of its present course and sweep southward, just as everyone knows that it is possible that an earthquake might week the whole City. Bnt unless it can be shown that the danger from the river is more than such a remotely possible event as that, the City ratepayers need not feel that they are foolishly neglecting a necessary insurance by rejecting the Trust's proposals. If the City's share of the cost were small, this consideration would not be of the highest importance, but actually the City will pay the greater part of the charges. The Trust is asking more than is reasonable when it asks the City to shoulder the chief burden of a scheme planned to cost £200,000 (but certain, in the end, like nearly all public works, to cost far more than the estimated sum) without giving it any convincing reason for feeling that its safety requires it to pay anything at all. Even if the risk to the City were real, a thorough survey of the country on this side of the river would probably disclose a means of averting the danger at a far smaller cost than £200,000. The present is in any case not the time for rushing into a plan involving such heavy expenditure, particularly when there is anything but agreement amongst competent judges that the Trust's plan will do what is claimed for it, and is the only plan that will. During recent weeks wc h?ive printed a .great many letters on the subject whjch make it quite clear thpt geologists and engineers arc distrustful of the plan and of the ideas .upon which it is based. The problem is not primarily a problem in engineering: the engineer must tfest his plans upon the judgment of geologists, and the one geological opinion of importance which has been expressed, that of Professor Speight, is adverse to the Trust's plan. It may be that modifications of tjie plan would result in the construction of a scheme as satisfactory to everyone as can be expected, but the Trust is asking the City ratepayers to sanction a very costly project, which competent people think faulty, for the protection of the City from a clanger which the Trust would have us think is real and.instant without giving us reasons why we should thiilk it is either the one or the other.