The Times. Published on Tuesday and Friday Afternoons. FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 1921. A CANAL ON WHEELS.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 642, 17 June 1921, Page 6

The Times. Published on Tuesday and Friday Afternoons.

FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 1921. A CANAL ON WHEELS.

“We nothing extenuate, nor aught set , down in malice.”

To carry 100,000 tons annually from Auckland to Huntly without going to the expense of digging a canal from the Manukau to the Waikato is the attractive programme laid before a sympathetic audience of Waiuku townspeople by Mr ■M. Wynvard, chairman of the Goods Roads Association, and a member of the Auckland Harbour Board. He claims that his, scheme has been adopted by the Harbour Board, though what in the sacred name of commerce Auckland has that Huntly would require IuO.OOO tons of, he does not take us so far into his confidence as to te'l us. However, the project must have some allurement, since it was unanimously adoptee) by his Waiuku audience. Briefly put the idea is to connect the Manukau and the Waikato River by a railway on -which canal barges, weighing 100 tons loaded, can be hauled overland from water, to water. With such minor details as the strength of the axles to carry such loads, or the horse-power of the locomotive required to haul them up inclined planes,, Mr Wynyard very properly does not bother us, But the whole scheme is only to cost £300,000 a mere trifle in these days of affluence. And it is to be raised in the usual way that does not hurt anyone, by a rate over all the districts concerned. 'Whether this , new proposal will be accepted by the W aiuku people in lieu of the deep-sea port demanded of the Waterways Commission so that they can trade direct with England, or whether it is merely to be an adjunct to it. we do not know. But we do know that if those interested in the Waikato river ever allow the Auckland Harbour Board to obtain control of it, or if the counties ever permit the Harbour Board to rate them they will regret it once, and once only. In the raeantitme the alternative route between the Waikato district and Auckland, across the low saddle east of Taupiri is being surveyed, and it is possible that it will not become necessary to put Mr Wynyard’s ingenious scheme, with its inevitable corollory. the canalisation of the last sixty miles of the Waikato's course., into operation. In any case, we think the Waiuku townspeople would have been in. waiting for the report 'of the Waterways' Commission before so hastily .committing themselves.