THE HARBOR BOARD AND ITS DREDGER.

Evening Star, Issue 3786, 13 April 1875, Page 2

THE HARBOR BOARD AND ITS DREDGER.

To the Editor, Sib, —It would appear from a report in a contemporary, that the Minister of Public Works nas recommended caution in the operations of the Harbor Board, lest the public mind be alarmed for the safety of the harbor itself, I propose to state a few thoughts, for looking at the fact of such a machine as the Eromised dredger lifting five hundred tons per our, twentv-four thousand' tons per week, or nearly a million and a quarter tons per year, who knows but some day it may scoop a hole through the bottom, and then our harbor’s no more. But in sober earnest does the Harbor Board think it is going to be supplied with a dredger capable of raising five hundred tons of silt per hour from, say, 25ft below to 25ft above the water’s surface which work is equivalent to about 30-horse power, to which add the friction to be overcome, also the work of hauling the machine to its work, with dipping the buckets, hoisting, &0., and we may approximate the total power required at about sixty horses, and all this for L 19.650? While at Home a double-ladder dredger made to raise three hundred tons of silt from 25ft below to IBft above the water costs L 22,000. Then, too, as I understand the height to which the atuff is to be raised being 25ft, I would remind the powers that be that every foot the mud is raised unnecessarily, represents a horse-power wasted. But then why should I question the propriety of raising the mud high in air ? Did not one of the members of the Board receive the idea in approving ecstacies? But then I suppose he thought it was to be carried direct overhead to the land being reclaimed. This I would say to those concerned: take care, with such high top gear your dredges might capsize. I gave the same advices to those in'charge of one at' Home, and four days after it toppled over and drowned two men. In conclusion I would say that public offices should be filled by men chosen because of their known fitness, and not places cut out to fit men. If things continue otherwise we will have public works and interests entrusted to men too stupid to see their own stupidity, and if they can blunder through a work in ten years that ought to be done in three, they will crow about their perseverance, and the people will cackle approval—l am, &c„ Octopus. Dunedin, April 12.