The Press Tuesday, January 11, 1927. The River Trust Poll.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18896, 11 January 1927, Page 8

The Press Tuesday, January 11, 1927. The River Trust Poll.

When the lean proposal °f the defunct Waimakarjri River Trust was submitted to the ratepayers last .April, only GIBS votes were recorded although there were 35,954 names on the roll. This was quite a fair poll as polls go in a community which never becomes really warm unless strong party feeling is aroused, as at Parliamentary and City Council ejections, and it would have been a better poll if the rain had not made comfort seem dearer to the elector than a sense of duty. Yet it was a smaller poll than it ought to have been, and a comparison of the figures for the Waimakarhi area and the Eyre area (the Eyre diversion poll was teken on the same day) shows dearly that the main defaulters were City ratepayers, f6r practically half the Eyre ratepayers voted. Since the poll oi l a ?t year it has been made clear to the ratepayers in the City area that they are far more deeply concerned in the policy of the Trust than any other people. They are not threatened with danger and Joss as are the dwellers on the river banks, but they are obliged to furnish the bulk of the cost of any scheme the new Trust may decide upon. They ought, therefore, to take whatever steps they may to ensure that whatever proposals are made shall be sound and that any plan that is adopted shall be as economical as possible. What js ths best plan of control nobody with a real sense of responsibility would care to say. Many plans have been suggested, some by laymen, some by expert engineers; and these vary greatly in costliness, Some, winch might be effective, would be relatively cheap; some, like the defunct Trust's plan, would be enormously costly and might be ineffective after all. There never was a dearer case, in fact, for a most thorough examination of the problems', of finance and engineering, involved in the controlling of this curious river. What the ratepayers Ought to do to-day, therefore, is to use their votes for the assistance of a policy of revision. Three of the candidates, Messrs Palley, Sullivan, and Winsor, none of whom has any kind of acquaintance with the river itself, and apparently no understanding at all of the other factors in the problem, are standing as uncritical and unquestioning champions of the old Trust and its policy and its methods. It is hardly going too far to say that in a position of difficulty and uncertainty the only thing the ratepayers can feel q uite certain of is that in voting against these three candidates one eannot be making a mistake. 0£ the other candidates this cannot be said, but Mr Manhjre, who was taken up by the Citizens' Association as its fourth man, was the most active fighter last autumn for thp polipy anc> methods of the ojd Trust, in which the public had lost all conftderjce. Of course the ratepayers will retain, whatever the result o£ today's election may be, their right to approve or to disapprove any loan proposal which the new Trust may make. And there is not much likelihood that the new Trust, whatever its personnel may be, will copy the methods of its discredited predecessor. Nevertheless, it is always best to be on the safe side, and safety to-day lies in making the new Trust one which will be new in personnel andin ideas. Nobody should be elected who can think the financial basis of the old Trust's scheme was soitnd, or who can oppose a complete review of the engineering problems involved.