RIVER PROTECTION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3766, 21 May 1907, Page 3

RIVER PROTECTION.

Interview with Mr Frankland. Views pt the Ministers. Our editor interviewed Mr F. W. Frankland yesterday morning respecting the efforts he had made, during his visit to Wellington last week, to conserve the interests of Foxton residents in reference to the damage done by the recent flood. Mr Frankland explained that his first step was to try and arrange an interview with the Minister of Marine for the deputation (which, it was hoped would consist of Messrs Aitkin, Moore, Hornblow, Morgan and Frankland,) which was coming to wait on him respecting the injury done by the flood to the borough and the port. In making the necessary arrangements with the Under-Sec-retary of the Marine Department (Mr Allport), Mr Frankland ascertained from him that the recent hydrographic survey of the lower reaches of the river (a survey the traces of which have been in evidence to all visitors to the beach and Sanatorium this season) was undertaken quite independently of the Marine Department and by experts of the Public Works Department at the request of the Lands Department. Mr Frankland therefore interviewed the Under-Sec-retary for Public Works (Mr H. J. Blow), the' Engineer-in-Chief of the Public Works Department (Mr Holmes), and the Undersecretary for Crown Lands (Mr Kensington). Through the last named he arranged an interview with Hon. Mr McNab, Minister of Lands, for Mr Morgan and himself for Wednesday morning. Mr McNab told Mr Morgan and Mr Frankland that the experts (already alluded to), of the Public Works Department who had, under the instructions of Engineer-in-chiefHolmes, collected information on the ground respecting the lower reaches of the river, had furnished him —Mr McNab—with a preliminary report. This report did not contain recommendations. It was simply a digest of facts and suggestions which would be handed over bodily, along with possibly a further report later on, to a River Board which he, Mr McNab, hoped would be created by statute during the coming session of Parliameht. Mr Holmes had .previously told Mr Frankland of this preliminary report and had mentioned, to Mr Frankland’s alarm, that among the suggested possibilities which the experts had—without recommending it—had in contemplation, was the well-known scheme of cutting an overflow channel from Major’s Bend to Hartley’s Bend so as to relieve the congestion of floodwaters higher up the river. If by means of a concreted entrance or otherwise, one could be certain—as an undoubted engineering fact—that the channel proposed would for ever remain merely an overflow channel and would not cause a silting up of the river in the neighbourhood of the Foxton wharf etc., there would be no cause for alarm on the part of Foxton residents and those (extending over a very large area indeed—from Fielding, Palmerston, and Dannevirke, down to Levin, to say the least) who are interested in the port of Foxton, and the proposed overflow channel might reconcile their interests with those of'the property-owners higher up the river who suffer from floodwater. But, if there is the slightest danger of the overflow-channel “ taking control,” as it were, or of silting up taking place in the present course of the river between Major’s Betid and Hartley's Bend, then the proposal is one to be resisted to the death by every person who has a particle of interest in either the borough or port of Foxton, —and the latter is as every one knows, of nothing less than colonial importance. Messrs Morgan and Frankland emphasized very strongly to Mr McNab, the danger to Foxton : but the Hon. Minister, whilst sympathetic and admitting that everything possible must be done for its interests, contended that if no other method of relief was possible for those residents higher up the river who were legally entitled to it, the conclusion was inevitable that such an over-flow-channel would have to be cut. When Mr Frankland asked Mr McNab what proportion of representation Foxton would have on the proposed River Board, Mr McNab said that would depend on the rating area determined on, and this was still unsettled. Mr Frankland then asked whom the Port, and those interested in it, would have to look to (pending the possible future creation of a Harbour Board) in the event of the River i Board not being in complete bar- . mony with those interests, and Mr McNab replied that they would have to look—as heretofore —to the Minister of Marine (Hon. Mr Millar, at present). He added that Mr Frankland’s only chance of interviewing Hon. Mr Miller would be to board his train at Paikakariki that evening and return with the Minister to Wellington. This Mr Frankland accordingly did, constituting himself a “deputation ” of one (!), having failed to induce either the Messrs Pearce, the partners in Levin & Co., to join him in this expedition. He had, however, previously had long talks with both the partners, and also with the general Manager and the

Chairman of the Bank of New Zealand, respecting the the seriousness of the injuries and the further menace to the shipping interests and property-owners of Foxton, and all four promised that if the damage turned out on investigation to be as bad as we in Foxton beleived, they would do their very best in the matter with the Minister of Marine. But, although Mr Frankland thus energetically seconded the representation of damage which Mr Morgan had made to his chiefs (Messrs Pearce, the partners in Levin & Co.) these latter could unfortunately not at once be brought to take an adequate view of the menace, because they had from other sources derived an unduly couleur de rose view of the easy remediableness of the injury the port had sustained. These other sources represented the damage as nothing worse than occurs pretty regularly at floods, and as something which would rapidly right itself, instancing the success of the “ Himatangi ” in already passing the secondary bar which had been thrown up below Hartley’s Bend. Messrs Morgan and Frankland, however, energetically protested that action on the part of the Government was a vital necessity. Mr Frankland’s interview in the train with the Hon. Mr Millar was brief, as the Minister could not spare much time. Besides impressing on Mr Miller the necessity of adequate works for the restoration and safeguarding of the harbour as a navigable port, he stated his opinion that a groin or tvyo at small cost in the right position, of the right construction, and at the right angle, would help to protect the property-owners below the wharf from further injuries of the kind they had lately sustained. The Minister of Marine expressed his intention of doing all he could to protect the interests of the harbour, promised to look into the matter, and said emphatically that he would allow no divided control oj the port!