CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 174, 5 August 1874, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Evening Mail. Sir —The freedom from floods we have so long enjoyed in Nelson baa led many to suppose that we had got rid of them altogether, but I think the rainy weather that is now upon us will remove any such delusion, and once more perhaps call public attention to the waot of an effective plan of protective works. The importance of this subject is immeasurably increased by the construction of the railway works now in progress throughout the colony; so much so in fact that I shall not be surprised to see the public works scheme embairassed by tbe damage that will be done, and tbe expense incurred by the futile efforts ihat will be made to provent it. Many thousands of pounds have been spent in Nelson alone on ** wing-dams," " groins," nnd other structures, and the Provincial Engineer comes to the unsatisfactory conclusion, as embodied in his various reports on river " erosion," that these works may at any time be rendered useless by a change in the river above ihem, and as a last resource apparently recommends the planting of belts of willow trees along the river banks, bnt says nothing about how these plantations are to be preserved while the willow sticks become tiees; thus, as it appears to tne, leaving private and public property alike to the mercy of our rivers, for it is quite certain that i even supposing willow trees are a sufficient protection, willow sticks are not. [ I believe that au impartial inquiry into the various plans that have been tried would show that our rivers are not the ungovernable things we are led I to suppose they are, and tbat it is to the interest of the public that such inquiry should be instituted. I I am, &c, C. To the Editor of thb Eveking Mail. Sir —Can you inform me why a new officer to be called the Town Clerk, is to be appointed by the City Council. Is it because all our streets are in 6uch gooJ repair and that they have so much money at their disposal that they do not know what to do with it, or is it because tbe old servant who has served them so long and co well cannot be trusted with it now that there is so much new zeal in the Council ? If the latter is the case, we had much better have stuck to the old barge that was so easily worked, and which has done so much good ssrvice in her time, than to attempt to sail a ship like the " Victory," which carries no more cargo and is to take so many mere hands to work her. Sir, I cannot see why tbe old clerk aod surveyor cannot do the work as well for the City Council as he did for the Board of Works. The work of town clerk nod surveyor is done in larger towns than Nelson by one person, for instance, i_ Geelong, Custlemaine, WiiliatnstowD, Sandhurst, and many other large towns in Victoria, and why should it not be so here ? I am, &c, Ratepayer.