The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. TUESDAY, MARCH 12. 1918 THE FUTURE OF THE WAIKATO RIVER.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 7, Issue 359, 12 March 1918, Page 2

The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

TUESDAY, MARCH 12. 1918 THE FUTURE OF THE WAIKATO RIVER.

" We nothing extenuate, nor

net down aught in malice."

The letter of Mr E. T. Frost upon the growth of navigation of the Waikato River and the possibilities of an enormous expansion of it in the future, which appears in another column of this issue, will be read with attention by a very large number of our subscribers. During the last five or six years interest in the river, once an important trade route, but long neglected and comparatively disused, has been gradually but steadily reviving, and the enquiry by the recent Royal Commission has shed much light upon many problems connected with it which were obscure to the public mind.

In the Waikato and its tribu taries we have a series o:

connected waterways far more extensive and valuable than anything of their kind in New Zealand. We say nothing of the projected canals to connect it with the East coast by way of the Piako and with the Port of Onehunga via the Manukau Harbour, for these proposals are merely in the air, and likely to remain so for a very long time to come. In the improvement of the river system itself, without any extension, there is sufficient outlet lor our energies for a lengthy period, and if the difficult problems it undoubtedly presents can be successfully grappled with the national reward will be a valuable one.

For that the problems are difficult is most unfortunately certain. The Waikato in the last fifty or sixty miles of its course presents features which make it unique among the rivers of the world. Its life history is a curious one \\'e hear much about the instability of human life, but that of a rivei mav be equally subject to ups and downs. We hnd the Waikato of today a shallow stream with a sandy bottom never very far away from a boat's keel, but its true bed is thirty or forty feet below its apparent one. Into it we see flowing tributaries twenty and even thirty feet deep with hard clay bottoms and no sand. The real bed of the river is many feet below low water mark and could never have been scoured out under present conditions. It

was made when the western part of the North Island was a great deal higher above sea-level than it has been for many thousands of years past. The one logical deduction is that as the land gradually sank the river brought down sand which by degrees filled up the river bed. The tributaries, not flowing through sandy country, had current enough to keep the river-sand out except a shelving incursion at the mouth. We may see the same thing repeated under our own eyes on a microscopic scale to-day. The damming of the Aka Aka channel by groynes has caused the silting up of that arm of the river and the sand has invaded the mouths of the drains sloping evenly and gradually away to nothing a few chains up. The hydraulic plane of the river—in everyday language its fall—is a remarkably flat one. Mean summer level at Mercer and high-water''at the Heads, nearly thirty miles away, are identical. As it is never low-water in the river it will be seen at once how slight the slope of the water is even when the tide Is at its lowest ebb, and it will be clear to anyone giving the matter a moment's thought how disastrous it would be to the navigation of the already too shallow river to lower the surface of the water. During the long period of time that has elapsed since the Waikato came down in the world it has probably done the best possible for itself in the way of securing a fall, which is, to a river, the most desirable thing in the world. If we are to make the Waikato more navigable we must preserve, not diminish, the hydraulic slope, and pay attention to lowering the bed and not the surface of the river.

The true estuary of this river, unlike other rivers, Is not its mouth but the wide expanse of the Maioro Bay. It has nearly filled up this large area, once an arm of the sea, with thousands of millions of tons of sand, and has built up numerous islands, meandering round them in several channels. It is abundantly evident that all these channels are vitally necessary to the well being of the river, and that the Waikato itself is strongly of that opinion is clear from the singleminded persistency with which it demolished over and over again the works erected to debar it from one of its accustomed routes, and in a year or two scoured a narrow cut only wide and deep enough to admit a Maori canoe into a passage 40 feet wide and 10 to 12 feet deep in its determination to assert its claim to its inalienable rights. " Inferus " and not " Excelsior " is a river's motto, and the Waikato certainly acts up to its principles. Acting as they do as a highway for many districts badly roaded and from their nature long likely to remain so, the improvement of the Waikato and its tributaries is a matter not merely of local but of national importance. We hope to see at no very distant date definite steps taken to deal with this magnificent asset in a way which will give the best results. At present river affairs are in a somewhat chaotic state owing to the divided authority controlling it. The River Board has charge of a large portion of the stream and an area of land on either side of it. Tiie Marine Department claims paramountcv as far as tidal waters run, that is to say to Mercer, and the Lands Department exercises authority over all matters affecting the land through which it flows. And, further, by the legislation of last session, the Minister for Public Works can step in and do what he thinks fit over the heads of all the others. Truly it is a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth.

From the activities of the River Navigation League and the visit this week of the new Minister for Marine much benefit may be expected, though we must not look for important results too soon. If the river can be placed in the hands of a single controlling body with sufficiently long tenure of office to insure a continuity of policv much will have, been accomplished. We only trust that if public money is to be expended it will be spent only upon permanent and not upon merely temporary improvements. Hitherto the forces of nature have been only slapped in the face. They must be patted on the back, and we may hope for a good deal in return from them.

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