The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2092, 19 January 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1870.

Notwithstanding the satisfactory reports that have reached us concerning the progress of the negociations for the construction of the Port Chalmers Railway we confess to some misgivings about it. We do not anticipate that there is any sham in the desire expressed by the Secretary for Land and Works to have it formed as soon as possible, at the cheapest possible price and in the best possible manner. But when we look at what has been done in the way of public works, we are not over sanguine that the Port Chalmers Railway will prove an exception to the rule. No matter whether those works are * roads, bridges, waterworks, gasworks, or public buildings, they never turn out what they are expected to be and they commonly cost more money than they are estimated to cost. It is in no carping spirit that we make these remarks, nor are they without :good grounds for them. It is one of

the lessons that lead to prosperity to learn from error how to avoid error in future, and the worst that can happen to a man or a community is to feel so satisfied with the past as to seek for nothing better in time to come. If the press were not to point to those mistakes as beacons tolling what should be avoided, public servants would not bo led to that minute investigation that should precede all arrangements for the public good. In proof of what we say therefore wc will adduce examples. As the earliest we have the gas works. By whom they were projected in the first instance wc do not know, nor are we greatly concerned to inquire. They were constructed at a time when every necessary material was difficult to obtain and before the city was reduced to its present symmetrical form. Why the site on which they stand was chosen we cannot say, but as it has turned out, Mr A. K. Smith pronounces it a blunder which has cost the Company dearly. However, there it is j and although not in the best possible situation, the works arc equal to the supply of the city for many years to come, perhaps until some cheaper and more effective mode of city lighting may be discovered. Hotwithstanding the shareholders suffered so much in pocket by the extra outlay required for gas, the Waterworks Company repeated the error, and they too, notwithstanding the triumphant flourish of trumpets with which the predictions of competent engineers were treated, have learned that those engineers knew better than the half-informed pretenders who undertook practically to prove those predictions false. We point emphatically to the waterworks, not only as an instance of misplaced confidence in an engineer, but as an example of consequent defective workmanship in many material respects, which at the present moment ought especially to be remembered lest the blunder should be repeated by the Government. Then, in public buildings, there are the Hospital, the Provincial Buildings, and the Hew Post Office Hall, the cost of each of which enormously exceeded the original estimates, and the perfect adaptation of each of which to the purposes originally intended may be fairly questioned, apart from other defects that experience has pointed out in each. With regard to roads, it is only necessary to go over the steep and difficult highways outside the City, winding, tortuous, and dangerous, taken in every direction but that which leads in the shortest way to the projected point, for the least instructed in art to pronounce the engineering bad, as it is expensive. The cost to the country of roads must not be estimated merely by the original outlay. That is evil enough, but it is a mere trifle compared with the extra labor and wear and tear of travelling upon them. Then, as to bridges, we will not go beyond the boundaries of the City to find examples sufficient to damage the reputation of any engineer guiltyofprojectingsuchabortions. Errors of judgment have been displayed in position, construction, and workmanship. Two years ago, the old bridge over the Water of Leith was rendered impassable by a flood. There would not have been much difficulty in patching it up, so as to render it available for foot passengers for years to come, had even the roughest engineering skill been applied. But as no skill at all was added to the money spent upon it, the bridge, and all the labor and cost of it, floated away upon the waters of the first heavy flood. The stone bridge thrown over that impetuous little watercourse, has more than once been alluded to by us as an instance of erroneous judgment in both position and construction. It owes its protracted existence to the private exertions of two or three individuals, in clearing away the timber that floated down : but for which, in all probability, it would have succumbed to the same torrent that swept the remnant of the old wooden structure to the Bay. But through the perverse judgment shown in the choice of the position of the bridge, and the consequent direction given to the water passing beneath its arches, private property has been very seriously damaged —we should imagine fairly—to the cost of the public. How all these public muddles render suspicion as to the future unavoidable. We always feel sorry to have to allude to official blunders’, for in nineteen cases out of twenty it is the political head of a department, who takes upon himself to decide upon things he knows little or nothing about, who is to blame, rather than the officer who has to be his scapegoat. The public, however, cannot get at the truth j they can only wonder where and how plans that bid defiance to the simplest laws of modern science, can have been dug up from the ashes of centuries, and foisted upon us instead of the cheap, elegant, and effective appliances of the present day. Wo should not have dragged these errors to light had we had no misgivings as to the Port Chalmers Bail way. But ugly rumors are afloat, which, if true, point to the incompetence of the Executive to deal with a work of so much importance,

and which ought to lead the people to insist upon the publication of the plans and specifications, that they may know how, by whom, and what is about to be done.