TOPICS OF THE DAY

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 140, 10 December 1929, Page 10

TOPICS OF THE DAY

Are sudden super-falls of rain becoming more frequent in New Zealand? There was the case the other day in the Thames-Ohinemuri district, where a creek of no great pretensions suddenly rose with such ferocity above a mining settlement as to take toll of human life. Coming nearer home, the recent weather has had a remarkable incidence in the Hutt basin, where some tributaries

have risen with astonishing suddenness under the influence of rains of local intensity. Some week or two ago comment was made on a tremendous flood in the higher Hutt; and only on Saturday last the main Hutt River, according to eje-witnesses, rose with a speed altogether out of keeping with the weather on the flats —in fact, the flood "came down like a wall, so that a horseman whose animal was wading across suddenly realised that his mount was swimming." Anglers have more than once had the experience, under a blue sky, of seeing the clear Hutt suddenly rise and become yellow, proving that "though the sun is on the river" there can yet be cloud bursts in the hills. Are these extreme rainfalls becoming more frequent, or are they more recorded than they used to be?^ The problem of the superflood intrudes into the question of cost of public works. Should bridges and suchlike be built high and dry, at double cost, in anticipation of deluges that may never come, or should bridge-builders take more risk and ask for less money?

A reply to the Taranaki critic of the New Zealand Meat Board, Mr. C. D. Dickie, has come from Timaru, from Mr. J. Trotter, "who has been a member of the Electoral Committee of the board since inception." Mr. j Trotter gives a general denial, buf does not venture to say whether it is true or untrue that the cool stores site purchased by the board is "on the wrong side of the Thames, squandering £30,000." He does not even say whether the Thames has a wrong side. He ventures the information, however, that after the site was bought, the London Storage Board "made an offer to reduce storage charges .... with the result that storage had been £50,000 cheaper the following year." Previous to that, the New Zealand Meat Board's efforts to reduce the cost of storage in London "had been laughed at." These remarks seem to carry the implication that a purchase that drove the laugh off London's face and made the London Storage Board sit up and take notice cannot have been very much on the wrong side of anywhere. Of course, it is not easy at this end of the globe to penetrate the psychology of London, or even of the London Storage Board, but Mr. Trotter's £50,000, set against Mr. Dickie's £30,000, is presented as a Roland for an Oliver in any case. So far as it has gone, this exchange is interesting. Still, without Mr. Jones and Mr. Lysnar, the argument seems to be far from complete.

As Minister of Railways and Commissioner of State Forests, the Hon. W. B. Taverner deserves credit for giving the public a clear glimpse of the big issues lying behind the kilndrying of New Zealand timber. The Department of Railways is leading the way by installing a kiln-drying plant in each Island, at a cost of about £10,000 each. The advantages claimed, as compared with air-sea-soning, include cheapness (for the cost of the kiln plant is offset by the speed of seasoning the timber, and consequent reductions in timber stocks and storage space), but much more important than that cheapness is "the better service, the longer life, and the lower maintenance cosLs that may be expected from rolling stock constructed with kiln-dried timber." The Railways Department will, in fact, save money in the seasoning; save money in the workshops by having a better timber for the workmen to handle, thus reducing working time and wood-waste; and save money in the usefulness and life of the vehicles thus manufactured. Turn now to the native trees: These, and particularly rimu, which is by far the biggest timber producer, have a considerable portion of non-heart (sap) wood. When kiln-dried, non-heart grades become adaptable to higher uses. Air-drying not only fails in that, but takes so long that borer and other pests attack the non-heart grades during the process. Kilndrying, indeed, not only enables the higher utilisation of the non-heart part of the tree, but "a greater utilisation of the varieties of trees in a native forest." It allows native timbers to replace a big proportion of foreign timbers now used, and allows cheaper native timbers to replace to some extent the scarce and costly kauri. And such changes should work out excellently on balance for the depressed New Zealand

timber industry. The above summary of the Minister's statement reveals high claims, the realisation of which would much more than justify the expenditure.

Is beach-fishing for sharks helpful for bathers, or the reverse? This question is being argued in Sydney, and is likely to be argued rather futilely, for there are several unknown quantities in the equation. Firstly, how many sharks are attract ed to a bathing beach by fishing baits, over and above the number of sharks that would come there in any event? Secondly, what is the proportion of caught and killed sharks to attracted sharks? Thirdly, does the number caught amount to anything more than a small fraction of the shark supply and its natural increase? So little is known about the larger inhabitants of the sea (whales included) and their habits and natural increase that no one is able to approach such questions with confidence. The catching of eleven sharks at Maroubra may mean much |or little; and the same remark applies to the catching of rats in the New Zealand bush, for even on land the rate of increase of wild life— rats, goats, deer, opossums, etc.—is a matter of much dispute. To say that ground traps help birds, in that trapping kills more rats than birds, requires the assumption that the rat casualties are more serious (in proportion to the rat reproduction rate) than are the bird casualties (in proportion to the bkd reproduction rate). We have not seen anyone prove this.