TOPICS OF TALK.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 236, 12 September 1873, Page 6

TOPICS OF TALK.

The members of the Legislative Council, for want of something better to do, have been considering the qnes-1 lion of river diversion. The Hon. Mr. Sewell brought forward a Bill for Water Supply—a Bill lo be law (if passed) generally throughout the Colony, but framed with especial regard to the requirements of settlers on the Canterbury plains. The Hon. Colonel Brett gave the Council a very pitiful picture of the hardships experienced by the families i&ettled on those plains, in consequence of their being no water. He, himself, had sunk a well 200 feetdeep without getting six inches of water. Ho was put, he said, to the greatest expense, and the poor wives and children of the settlers in the district were to be seen going between three and four miles in order to drag up a pail of water. It is rather difficult, from: the reported debate alone —without the Biil—to judge of its nature. Apparently, it proposes to give somewhat arbitrary powers to the Superintendent to authorise diversion of water from one source to another. It is a hopeful sign that a Bill of such a nature should have emanated from the Upper House. Probably it will not pass. Still, as a measure will have, before long, to be carried, it is a good tiling that the mam principles arc being freely ventilated, independent altogether of mining pressure or influences. In- the debate, the Hon. Mr. Miller brought■ up the Kakanui question. His remarks, though containing nothing new, will be of interest. He said:

There was a river in Otago called the Kakanui. It was of considerable size and length, and ran through considerable tracts of fertile country. Certain individuals had been residing on the banks of this river for some time, employed in various industries. There was a felimongery, a flottr mill, and other industries of some magnitude, and there were also a great many persons carrying on farming operations. Some time ago, itT became necessary to supply a Goldheld called the Maerewhenua with water. Some miners

-whose enterprise in carrying water over most extraordinary • country by . means .of fluming was well known— undertook to convey water from the head of the Kakanui to the Maerewhenua Goldfield, which was in a totally different part of the district. It.was found, after the matter had been inquired into and a report bean made, that if the w;/ jr was diverted from the head of the Kakanui River to this Gold field, the persons residing on the banks of the river, and who had been dependent upon the water for carrying on their operations, would be deprived of water during a certain period of the year. The Kakanui was one of those rivers, common enough in New Zealand, a large quantity of whose water went underground, and in the summer season, if such a quantity of water as the miners proposed to abstract from the head of the river had been taken away, there would not be sufficient left in the river to supply the wants of the settlers. This case had caused a great deal of dissatisfaction in the district, and it was quite clear that, under this Bill, an agitation might be got up- by which the Superintendent might be induced to allow the waters of such a river to be diverted, and ail that the people who suffered, thereby could claim would be compensation, the amount of which would be settled by arbitration. .

'S he dili'i'-.uLf.y of awarding- compensation would. in our opinion, reader the Bill valueless if it became law. Besides which., we do m>fc altogether cave to concede that . any compeuxaiion should attach iu cases such as the Kakanui. where no one would be injured by tne pro; oscd diversion of such ■high branches ; nor do we suppose that a race large enough to divert water from any one watershed to another could diminish the supply on the natural bed to an extent to injure individual settlers on such rivers—to such an extent, at least, as to make the matter of compensation a serious question.

W. ft at is diversion from one watershed to another? or. shorter' still, 'What is a watershed? . M>. M'Tverrow, in his final report on the Maerewhenua block, says :—" The question hero arises, W*ould the granting of the application uoK prevent the diversion of the water from the Otekaike to another watershed ? If so : then the proposed water race fr tn the Otekaike to the auriferous ground already reserved by the Waste Lands "Board, in the - Ma-j-rewhenua watershed, would luive ro be quashed, just as in the case

of the proposal to divert the Kakanui to the same Groldfield." Mr. M'Kerrow has surely gone a little too fast here. The Ote - aike and the Maerewhenua both discharge into the "Waitaki —the ranges they, as subsidiaries drain, being all part of the Otago side of the Waitalri watershed. The Kakanui. is different —discharging directly into the sea. If our view is not correct, it would be river diversion to bring the waters of the Wetherburn, E web urn, or any other small creek or river into the Hogburn. It is not easy to get a good definition of whaD constitutes a watershed. The best we can give is, that it is the ridge or slope of ridges from which water drains on either side into two independent river basins. By many English geographers the teim waler-parUng has been substituted, as being the more correct rendering of the original German word,; tvassersclriede, "We do not, then, think there need be the least fear as to any difficulty existing in law in cutting a race from the Otekaike to Maerewhe-

nua, should any company think it worth trying—no difficulty, that is to say, on account of the law as regards river diversion.

It should surely not be a difficult matter to rebut Dr. Sorley's assertion, tbat a, man, too soon consigned to the dead ward of the Dunedin Hospital, rose and walked, to the consternation of the attendant?. Not difficult, if it were not true. On ail sides complaints are arising about the management of this institution. While, no doubt, statements from valetudinarians and invalids should, be received with reservation, as sickness necessarily, gives everything a morbid and jaundiced color, yet common sense should tell that it is impossible for- the skilled staff at present maintained to attend' to such a large number of patients properly, and as equally impossible for those patients to be kept comfortable on the small cost they are at present to the Province. The sooner the Hospital is open to honorary surgeons, and the institute is placed under the management of a Committee appointed from among the subscribers, the better.

We h ave for some time, as far as the General Assembly is concerned, eschewed party politics iti oui columns, considering if, of far more importance to circulate accurate conceptions of measures brought forward and pro-, posed to be made law, than to follow the parly moves and straggles of individual members. It is right, however, to glance, occasionally at the balance, of political power, the true equilibrium of which forms the chief value of representative Government. The Opposition appear to have taken the somewhat politic course of giving the pre-* sent Executive full rope, in the hope that they may hang themselves. The Premier, on the other hand, .rather courts defeat, that, by the voice of the constituencies, he may find his hands so sirengthened as to be able to deal w:th firmness in matters that constantly crop up antagonistic to the general welfare of the Colony, but which are pressed by such powerful Provincial interest that resistance is almost' ho potass.- One thing appears evident this session, that-Mr. Yogel is the Government, and that there is no one to be found in the Opposition ranks at all equal to the task of guiding the affairs of the Colony at this present juncture. To denend thus on one man is a singularly unfortunate state of affairs that it is to be hoped will not long continue.

Is there riot something wrong in the pride most men feel in not being taken in easily ? —in being too clover to be deceived, and iu looking with consequent co.ntempt ou others who may have suffered through a too great erei dulity in the faith of those with whom I thej are associated. There is a foreign | element in this general suspecting of motives in each other, which is the shield carried about so often for self-pro-tection and self-laudation. It has been | wittily said, " I could hardly feel much ■ confidence in a man who had never I been imposed upon." There seems a j large vein .of truth in this.