The Globe. SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1877.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 887, 28 April 1877, Page 2

The Globe. SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1877.

During the various stages of the " War of the Drainage," which has of late enlivened the relations between the public and those civic dignitaries who have been good enough to take upon their shoulders a certain share of municipal cares in matters of drainage, a point of considerable importance appears to have escaped the general notice. It is one striking at the root of the whole controversy, inasmuch as the vantage ground to Avhich _ the Drainage Board tenaciously clings, when repelling the attacks of their opponents, is that it is bound to blindly follow the dictum of its engineer, high is he otherwise stands as the engi-neer-in-chief of the colony. Now, we contend that the Board has all alon»been travelling out of its jurisdiction when imposing the task of developing a drainage scheme upon Mr Car-i-uthers. His position is, and has always been, that of consulting engineer to the Board, to whom reference at any time might be made by the lat-

ter in professional matters undertaken by their engineer, Mr N. Bell. The drainage scheme should, without any doubt, have come from the last-named gentleman, the duty of the consulting engineer being to supervise, rectify, approve, or otherwise, what primarily originated with the engineer proper of the Board. But, here, the Board placed the cartbefore the horse; the subordinate official, of course, not being competent to be appealed to as regards what emanates from his superior. And we might go farther, and ask whether there be any need of putting the ratepayers to the expense of maintaining two engineers if one be the the re-echo only of the other. To illustrate our meaning, we might state that, in the case of the Timaru breakwater for instance, no one would think of calling Sir John Coode the consulting engineer of the Timaru Board. He was asked to design certain plans for the contemplated works, and he executed them. With, the carrying out of the designs he will have nothing whatever to do, neither will he get so much per cent, on the cost of the undertaking, nor a yearly salary in addition. As things are just now with our drainage works, the ratepayers have had already some £2OOO or more to disburse; they have lost valuable time, and, as far as we can see, they are not in the least farther advanced than they were when the grand engineering scheme introduced by Mr. Carruthers was first accepted by the Board. Yet the expenses are running on, and so are the salaries of Messrs Carruthers, Bell, and Webster. «. It is not so very long ago that the Government Buildings at Blenheim, containing the records of the various departments located there, were burnt to the ground. Scarcely any of these records escaped destruction, through the non-existence of safes sufficient to preserve them. The consequent loss to the community was very severe, and, to a certain extent, irreparable. Here, although provision of a somewhat complete nature towards giving security to public documents does exist iii our Public Buildings, it would seem as if, in some important particulars, the authorities were guilty of much neglectfulness. Our attention has been drawn to the fact that some of the most valuable documents under departmental custody, viz., original licenses issued by the Crown to occupy waste lands, preceding survey or pre-A-ious to being Crown granted, are packed up on the top of official shelves, like so many bundles of waste paper, and there remain, from year to year, at the risk of being destroyed in case of conflagration. This is a serious matter, and one which should have been looked to long ago. The_ duplicate licenses to occupy, which are given to purchasers, are printed on common paper, the texture of which stands but little wear, and many of these documents have, in consequence, tumbled to pieces and been lost sight of. A large number, issued many years past, have not yet been replaced by Crown grants, the result being that the only proof of purchase between the public and the Crown may be said to be the very original licenses referred to. Why they should be thus allowed to remain in that uncared-for state is somewhat puzzling, as there is no lack of safe accommodation in the buildings.