THE WAIMAKARIRI.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18890, 4 January 1927, Page 10

THE WAIMAKARIRI.

TO THB IStTOt 0» TH« FEXSS. j Sir. —I have a collection of i letters on the Vaimakariri —:hat iThe Pre.« copie=. including the attack of Mr D. G. Sullivan on you and The Press. I think you would do well to treat it with contempt. The readers of The Press have amongst them some of the ben brainy people in the Dominion, people wno are not accustomed to that class of vindictive rubbish. Mr George Gould and Mr H. H. Holland are concerned about the cost of a bridge crossing the Waimakariri. Whv should the people of Christcbureh and* district pay for the bridge? Bridges across the river are the business of the Government and the Railway Department. Put a dredge to work below the bridge, and see how quick the Government will be in making the necessary alteration. Various writers on the Waimakariri sav: "Show us a better scheme than the one submitted by Mr Hay and the Trust/' The writer has submitted three schemes:—l. The regulating dam, etc.; '2. The dredge; 3. The grab. Now the combined dredge and grab, in one third the time that it would take to make the cut proposed by Jir Hay and hu> other works, and at one third the cost or less, would clean the bottom of the river of bars and rubbish, whereas the cut would only affect the river for a short distance up, and building banks is merely helping to raise the river bottom. The writer spent just j on thirty years hydraulic mining and dredging. "I also among other plants designed, built, and managed the largest hydraulic in either the Dominion or Australia. The writer also designed the best gold saving plant for fine gold ever designed, and it has been, and is now being, used wherever fine gold is used. The late Right Hon. R. J. Seddon had my plant photographed time and time again, and I still have some of them if anyone likes to see them. I am telling you this so that yon will see that I had to learn before I could do these things—gradient, and volume of water to carry away down channel or boxes, and over the tables, the different sizes of gravel and sands, etc. Now, to get the greatest efficiency, the bottom of the boxes, tail-races, or sludge channels used, to j be as smooth as possible, and one must keep in mind that the less the meted perimeter, the greater the body of water and the greater the amount of tailings would be shifted. During my long experience of various rivers I found the above principles applied just as much as it did in channels or boxes. Now from all the people who have written to The Pbess, or those who have written privately, and many, many who have come out to' see me, the testimony is clear that the reverse • has been done on the river, and the excellent report of your reporter confirms this. The old South River Board did a very stupid thing when it allowed scrub to grow about the river-bed, or those parts that were likely te be the river-Ded. History teaches that there is nothing man can do to stop a building river from building. Man with study can direct where the river shall do its building, but he cannot stop it. But they even did worse. They planted ■willows, and your reporter shows in his report, the willows are now retarding the flow of the water. Then, instead of pulling the willows and scrub up by the roots the tops are cut off, and the stumps remain in the bottom of the river. This will practically destroy the scouring effect of the water on the bottom, and will have- the same effect as a weir would have until the gravel and sands rise above the stumps. It is very evident that up to the present there has been no person, a member of either the South Board or Trust, who really knew anything about rivers that it is necessary to know to control them. In Mr Furkert's last report he mentions some of the Italian rivers the writer has written on to _ The Press previously. The writer could have given him all the information he has gained there on all the Italian and many rivers and canals of other countries, With reports from the most eminent engineers right through the ages from when mankind was young, including many plans. But they never had the best of all machines, and the greatest servant man ever had for such waste, the dredge. Well, the election for members will soon be here, and I would like to warn the ratepayers that the best men they can put in are those who have made a success of their time in this world off their own bat, and they should be chary fof giving votes to previous members. They want men like the Hon. George Witty, who I am glad to see standing on the Commission.—Yours, etc., GEORGE LEE. Templeton, January 2nd.

10 THE BDITOB 01 THZ PSBSB. Sir, —In standing for election, Mr George Gould is practically a supporter of the Trust's No. 2 scheme. Though not an engineer he is a gentleman of sound common sense, and most certainly has the courage of his convictions, for the Trust, in making the proposals of which Mr Gould virtually approves, has been held up by you to opprobrium of no ordinary sort. Mr Gould writes of "helpful criticism." Your criticism has been to write of the Trust, and its engineer, of Mr Furkert, the Government Engineer-in-Chief, as being men with little vision, with but a limited knowledge of the river, etc., etc. You have told us that the river is no more a menace to Christchurch now than it was 40 years ago. Mr Gould supports the Trust in telling us that the danger is a very real one, and one that demands immediate action on the lines of that body. The election is but a.fortnight off. Can it be that your destructive criticism is quite exhausted that you are now silent on the Bubiect under discussion T —Yours, etc., J C. A. TOBIN.

Burwood, December 2nd. [Our views are unaltered, and we shall continue to do what is necessary to avert the adoption of any doubtful scheme—Ed. The Press.]