The Press Thursday, May 13, 1926. The Waimakariri.
The Waimakariri Biver Trust cannot well expect to win the public's confidence through its treatment of the position created by the ratepayers' refusal to approve of its recent loan proposal. "Wo are not referring, of course, to its decision to occupy itself in the immediate future with the erection of stop banks on the southern side of the river, the clearing out of willows, etc., from the channel, the building <A groins near Kimberley, and the planting of willows at certain points. This is all necessary and useful work, and is something like the interim work suggested by Mr Henry Cotterill and other business men in a letter to " The " Press " on the eve of the poll. But the Board seems to be convinced that it need not seek any other general .plan of control than that which it proposed last month. This may be inferred from its decision to ask Mr Furkcrt, the professional head of the Public Works Department, to look into the problem of river control during his absence in the Northern Hemisphere and to report whether any improvements can be made in the Trust's plan. Mr Furkert's unqualified approval of that plan as the best one and the only one worth considering Was very largely advertised by the Trust, and it cannot be supposed, therefore, that Mr Furkert is likely to come back ■and say that he was seriously mistaken. It is, indeed, hardly fair to ask j him to sit in judgment on his own ] opinion. The alternative proposal, which was first put forward in our own columns, and which the Chamber of Commerce supported in a communication considered yesterday by the Board, is that the whole problem should be submitted to the Institute of Civil Engineers in Great Britain, and entrusted by the Institute to some competent engineer to investigate on the spot. It is next to impossible for any engineer to devise a scheme for controlling the river without personal inspection of the river and its basin. The utmost that can be managed in the way of supplying written data would not supply a foreign expert with more than a general understanding of What is required or the means of coming to anything more than a rough general idea of what might be done. An electrical engineer in London can as easily draw up a scheme for the electrification of ten miles of railway in Canterbury or in Patagonia as he can give directions for boiling an egg in Hong Kong, but the controlling of a river is a problem which in the important details —and this problem is surrounded by important details—varies from river to river. At the present moment; there appears to be no means whereby the River Trust can be persuaded to adopt the wiser course which it disregarded yesterday. But a means may perhaps be found through ( an amendment of the constitution of the Trust. It is universally allowed that the present constitution, which denies an effective voice to the area south of the river which bears the main financial responsibility for the Trust's operations, is monstrously wrong. The Trust is to consider a proposal that the southern subdivision should have one additional representative, but if the Act were amended only to that extent, the tinder-representation of the southern area would continue.
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Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18690, 13 May 1926, Page 8
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561The Press Thursday, May 13, 1926. The Waimakariri. Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18690, 13 May 1926, Page 8
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