MANAWATU COUNTY COUNCIL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2365, 8 December 1921, Page 3

MANAWATU COUNTY COUNCIL.

MONTHLY MEETING.

The monthly meeting of the Manawatu County Council was held at Sandon on Tuesday, the chairman, Sir James Wilson, presiding. There were also present: Councillors J. Boyce, W. E. Barber, W. S. Penny, 11. J. Fagan, and H. G. Hammond.

CORRESPONDENCE,

From the Foxton Chamber of Commerce, asking that the council’s engineer provide an astimate for straightening the Foxton Bench road. The Chamber would endeavour to raise a fair pi’oportion of the cost from the leaseholders, and also the Harbour Board, thus relieving the council from bearing the full cost of the work. —The engineer was instructed to draw up an estimate of the cost of the proposed work. From the Wanganui Education Board, asking for a donation towards agricultural school work in the county, which was carried on at fourteen schools. —The sum of £lO was voted for the purpose. From the Foxton Plunket Society, asking for a donation. —Society to be informed that under an amendment to the Act the council had no power to accede to the request. From the Manawatu-Oroua electric power district, applying for payment of £SO, the amount to be provided by each constituent body as a loan to the provisional committee to provide for initial expenditure incurred in the constitution of an electric, power district. —Passed for payment. From the Department of Public Health, urging that steps be taken for the destruction of rats. —It was resolved to publicly call upon ratepayers to make every endeavour to destroy I he rodents.

From the Public Trust Office, forwarding £7,500 as a further instalment on the loan of £30,000.

BEACH ROAD,

Mr D, Lovelock waited on the council on behalf of ratepayers anxious to see an extension made to the road along Foxton beach. He handed the council £2O, which he had collected towards the cost of I he work, the council to find the balance. The ratepayers concerned wanted about eight or ten chains of rough road constructed, 12 feet in width and crowned up in the centre with four inches of clay.—Referred to engineer and member for the riding, Cr. Barber.

TREASURER’S REPORT

The treasurer reported that the county fund account was £10,050 13s lOd in debit, and the loan account £0,425 0s 5d in credit. This left a net debit balance of £3,625 13s sd. The amounts available for expenditure to March 31st, 1022, were as follow: Sandon Riding £2,206 6s Id, Mt. Stewart £132 0s 3d, Wnitohi £lB5 3s, Rongotea £552 16s 4d_, Carnarvon £231 17s Id, Kawa Kawa £505 7s lOd, Awahou £460 13s lOd.

ENGINEER’S REPORT.

In the course of his monthly report the engineer stated that in the Awahou Riding in the early part of last month Cr. Barber and himself made an inspection of the erosion that was taking place in the Manawatu river towards the FoxtonShannon bridge. Two years ago the council made an attempt to ward off the erosion with large maerpearpa trees by placing them along the bank and securing them with concrete blocks, without, success. The erosion was still working towards the Main mad, and the road would not be safe for another winter. He thought it would be advisable to proceed with the survey of land for a new road and stop-bank without delay.

Referring to the tramway, the engineer said that the old wooden bridge at Harris’ had been replaced and the bridge opposite Grace’s would be removed at an early date. A large number of decayed sleepers had been removed between Sanson and Penny's Line during the past month, and it would be necessary to give this length a. thorough overhaul when material was available. Two trucks of sleepers had come to hand recently, and apparently they were a mixed lot of silver pine and knikawhaka. Quite a number were under the size specified. The stone crusher had been working steadily the whole of last month, and the output was 875 yards of crushed metal. Mr David and himself made several trial tests with screened and unscreened metal. The unscreened metal took 13 minutes per 1J yards, and the screened metal 10 minutes per li yards. This woj-ked out approximately to 52 and 3f> yards per day respectively. Even then 'it was not crushed down to the fineness required by the council. During his recent visit to Auckland he made an inspection •of several rock crushing plants. At none of the quarries inspected was the fine material produced by one operation, but he thought it was possible to crush down to 11 inches by any of the rotary crushers. Some of the crushers were working with plain smooth cones, and others with corrugated cones. It thus appealed to him that the damp sand would not stick so readily to the smoothfaced cone as to the corrugated cone.

TRAMWAY MANAGER’S REPORT. The tramway manager’s report for the month of November, 1921, stated that the .accounts showed a credit balance of £lO 17s lid. The following were the chief items of traffic: —Merchandise 189 tons, butter and cheese 2341 tons, manure and minerals 159 J tons, metal and clay 1,000 cubic yards, timber, 8,500 superficial feet. Fares amount-

ed to £2 2s 9d. The repairs . and overhaul of “AI” wagons had been completed, and they had been inspected by the New Zealand Railways Wagon Inspector, and passed for traffic on the Government line. The first set of wheels with new axles fitted had been returned from East Town workshops, and another set forwarded. Both locomotives were in good working order. It was proposed to commence the running of metal to Foxton as soon as permission was received from the Railway Department. He wished to draw attention to the difficulty in collecting outstanding tramway accounts. This 'matter had been brought forward by the auditor, and he suggested that in all cases where accounts were not settled promptly no further ‘ goods be carried until payment was received. He proposed sending a circular report out to this effect. The report was adopted.