CANALS AND WATER CARRIAGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 1, 23 March 1927, Page 12

CANALS AND WATER CARRIAGE

EXCEPTING where steamship companies have an exploitative monopoly, with no rail or road opposition, water carriage is by far the cheapest of all forms of transport, and, therefore, the proposals made at various times for the connecting by canal of the Waitemata' and Manukau Harbours have been questions of much interest to the public, and particularly to the producer, the possibilities of constructing such a canal have been investigated by a commission appointed by the Government ; but, like the long-talked-of North Shore Bridge, that is about as far as it has gone, inasmuch as it is concerned as a national undertaking. Private enterprise, however, discerns payable possibilities in such a canal. Mr David B. Russell, of Avondale, has just succeeded in enlisting the support of the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, representative of the rich Waikato interests, for his scheme to make a cut from the Whau Bridge on the Great North Road, to Ivaraka Bay on the Manukau, a distance of only one mile and a-quarter. The canal, it is claimed, would reduce the distance from Prince’s Wharf to Manukau Heads to 22 miles, and the cost of a 20-foot cut would be only £750,000. The canal via Tamaki is condemned by the propounder of the Whau route as impracticable, owing to the existence of many natural obstacles presenting grave engineering problems. Linked with the Whau scheme is the necessity for inland water communication between the rich Waikato district and Auckland, which can only be provided by a canal from the Waikato River to the upper reaches of the Manukau at Waiuku. Such a canal, it is estimated, could be constructed for £150,000 and this would give smooth water communication via the proposed Whau cut, instead of the present long route down the Waikato River, up the often turbulent coast, and into the Manukau, with the costly business of land carriage from Onehunga to the city. Shortly before the outbreak of wa f. Mr Russell received a concession from the Auckland Harbour Board giving the right to construct the canal, and he says all that is now necessary is the raising of the money and the passing of an Empowering Bill through Parliament. It is a fairly formidable “all,” however. Is a Government which was responsible for legislation which drove most of the motor-buses off the roads—largely inspired, one mighl imagine, by the road threat to its own railways—going readily to approve such a concession to private enterprise, when the canal would take from the railways a very large amount of transport work? It seems unlikely.