PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. The Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1919. THE WAIKATO RIVER

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 8, Issue 490, 16 December 1919, Page 2

PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

The Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1919. THE WAIKATO RIVER

"We nothing extenuate, nor ut down auaht in malice."

DURING the last five or six years public opinion has been gradually, but increasingly edncated as to the immense potentialities of the Waikato River as a highway for trade, and as it is a subject in which a very large number of the readers of the TIMES are directly interested we need no excuse for once again devoting our leading columns to it. Already the carrying trade upon the river has reached very considerable proportions, although it is merely in its infancy, and there is no doubt that if the channel of the Waikato were so improved that the present hindrances to navigation were removed the volume of traffic would be enormously increased, to the immense benefit of many districts at present badly roaded, and likely long to remain so.

For some years the lower Waikato has been under the control of the Waikato River Board, a body formed for the purpose of draining certain areas of swamp south of Mercer. Jheir scheme was to lower the surface of the river sufficiently to allow of this drainage being done, and did not take the question of navigation into consideration at all. Six or seven years' work and the expenditure of a large amount of money has shown the undertaking to be a failure. As the TIMES from the first confidently predicted, the low hydraulic gradient of the river made any lowering of its surface at Mercer an absolute impossibility. The nett results of the Board's operations have been:—(a) a permanent rise in the river level between Kaitangata and Tuakau, owing to the narrowing of the channel by the groynes at the former place, (b) no effect of any sort on the river level at Mercer, where a lowering of four feet was promised (c) a considerable injury to navigation owing to silting and the formation of sand-banks resulting from the action of the groynes, and (d) a heavy load of debt upon the ratepayers of the district for works which are not only useless, but will have to be removed at great expense. It is palpable that the Board has not only completely failed in its undertakings, but has no remedial suggestion to make, and has indeed long since given up any idea of attaining its original objective. The sooner, therefore, the Waikato River is removed from its control the better it will be for everyone concerned.

We trust, however, that the termination of the Board's jurisdiction will not mean the abandonment of the river to Nature; in fact we feel sure it will not. The ill-treatment it has received during the progress of the Board's ill-conceived and badly conducted operations has raised up on its behalf quite a host of friends, of whom we claim to be the oldest and the most consistent, and we cannot but believe that some concerted action will be taken to repair the injury that has been done to it and to improve it for navigation purposes. The idea of draining the Mercer swamps by gravitation is as dead as Julius Caesar, and no one will ever attempt to reyive it, but the possibility of making it once more the great high-way of commerce it was before the war of 1863 still remains, and the community will be foolish indeed if it does not make an attempt to restore it.

A move in this direction has been made by the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, which proposes that from the mouth to Cambridge it shall be put under the control of a Harbour Board. Although we would rather see this done than have the river neglected, we are by no means certain that such a body is the one most fitted to make a success of what is an admittedly difficult problem. A Harbour Board has undoubtedly wide and extended powers, with rights to rate all lands within ten miles of the waters under its care, but its administration is extremely costly, and as it is elective there will be no guarantee that its members will possess any of the special knowledge that would qualify them to train and improve the waterway. Members of local bodies are frequently elected for reasons quite apart from their qualifications for carrying out the special works committed to them, and we submit that the deeply intricate questions to be solved in dealing with the improvement of the Waikato's navigation can only be competently dealt with by persons who have long studied them. The dismal failure of the elective River Board should make us doubly careful not to make another costly fiasco possible.

The history of river-training has taught us that no particular operation is certain to be followed by any given result. The

most that can be said is that | the given result will probably ! follow, but rivers are so prone j to do something entirely unex-, pected when their settled habits I are interfered with sound' engineers usually hesitate to give a didactic opinion. The Waikato, presenting certain features which make it unique among the rivers of the globe, is not likely to prove any exception to the general rule. That it will be possible to overcome its peculiar idiosyncrasies, and train it to improve its bed without any very large expenditure, we make no doubt whatever, but such a result will only be attained from a series of small, carefully watched experiments, extending over a considerable period of time. To hurry it would mean a heavy outlay, with the almost certain result that certain unforseen tendencies would manifest themselves and cause much needless waste of money. And all the time the heavy administrative expenses of the Harbour Board would be running on. And with the change of personnel on the Board following successive elections would come new members with different ideas from their predecessors as to the correct procedure to be followed in dealings with the river, so that there would be no continuity of policy. What we consider would be the ideal governing body would be a small number of administrators consisting of both engineers and laymen, nominated by the Crown. Only such a body would have the length of life which would enable the navigation of the river to be successfully dealt with. The subject has already been brought before the Government and the principle endorsed by the Ministers concerned, but the National Government was disinclined to take any action during the war period, and Mr Massey's Cabinet was far too busy during the short period since it resumed office to consider the question. But when the elections are over we trust that a move in the direction we have indicated will be made, and that the future of the Waikato River will at last be vested in competent hands.