CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 193, 3 September 1900, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

[We do not hold ourselves responsible for opinioas expressed by correspondents.] THE OPAKU RESERVE. TO THE EDITOR. Sik, —Your contention that the efficiency of Victoria College would be increased by diverting the revenues of the Opaku reserve to Wellington will not be very popular in Taranaki. The only purpose for which Wellington requires the money seems to be the erection of a large university. This is quite unnecessary, and would not increase the efficiency of the College one iota. Besides, it would be poor policy on our part to allow our revenues to be used in erecting a build--1 ing which would be rendered less accessible to Taranaki scholars by the , very fact that we had used our funds ; for that purpose, instead of founding : scholarships with them. Increasing , the efficiency of the College! How ' can the efficiency of the College be better increased than by"attracting as • large a supply possible of able ! students, and offering them every in- . ducement to resort to it 2 It is not . the class-rooms, but the classes, that '• need our attention at present. Let usj ; encourage scholars, and the buildings r will follow indue course. For these I reasons, I 'should be ■ sorry to see a t penny of our funds diverted from r Taranaki to Wellington; and I think j Mr. Mackay is justified in resenting E observations calculated to tie the hands ■ of himself and bis colleagues, and to ' defeat their assertion of Taranaki's [ rights in this matter, especially when those observations oome from a quarter E whence support might have been looked f for;—l am, etc., I Bakblok, [lf our correspondent insists on dis--1 torting our remarks we shall decline to publish his letters. His remarks only apply to a position that exists solely in his own vivid imagination—Ed.] > ■ J THE HARBOUR QUESTION. TO THE EDITOR, > Sir, —It is rather amusing to read [ the report in the papers re Harbour ; Board meetings now. After the Chair- ' man had been killing time and draw- ■ ing very largely on the reports, he said 1 he did not think there was much dam--1 age, and he regretted that a statement should have gone forth and been pub't lished in southern papers that the ; breakwater was again threatened. I • said, what was the object of secrecy? The Chairman said that the stones had i rolled out into the sea with the back- ' wash. The Chairman wanted to sell ' the crane, but was stopped, and a nice ! mess we would have been in if he had. i I said the stones should have gone to ■ protect the mole. Seven or eight hundred yards of stone had been used to protect the sand pump, which was 1 disagreed to by the Board. Had there been any very rough weather the sea would have gone through the mole and washed away one hundred feet, as it . was in the same position as it was when the forty feet was washed away at the end of the mole. I also see in the Taranaki News of 18th, an editorial on " Harbour Matters." If there is one thing more we need only to mention the hole in the wall." How the bole in the wall never cost anything, and referring to the duly qualified marine engineers, in their own estimation, reminds me of a poor old captain. and the engineer and his model harbour, when he said the ought to be put. in a lunatic asylum to s'op him from doing any harm, whin he wanted to take out the side blocks of the mole to put them on the small stones he was going to put there to stop the wave-break from going over the mole. Mr Editor, just, fancy any block stopping the wave-break going over the mole. Have you ever seen it? If not, go and have a look in rough weather. That will give you a little knowledge of the possibility of one block stopping the wave-break, Sir, it is a poor consolation for one who has done everything in his power to further the harbour. I might say I have known and bad to do with the beach and the drift of the sand for over SO years, and knew the Huatoki River when it used to run by the gasworks in 1862 or 1863, when a lot of monely was spent in cutting a channel and putting a kind of a wharf out to sea, and a big boat was put down by the gasworks, filled with bags of sand, to stop the river from running out there, and to make it go out the straight channel by the stone wall; but the tide came in, and filling up this straight channel in one tide, broke through in front of this toat, and all this money was wasted. Now the Henui river runs along the beach northwards, and all the small rivers are driven north by the sand. Even the Waitara river was driven northwards, about ten chains, two years 1 ago by the sand. Now, sir, if you go to the north end of the island you will find the sea driven back eleven miles by the accumulation of sand and shingle within the last 40 years, proving the sand and shingle go north on both sides of the island. Now, sir, knowing the beach as I do, and the trouble and time I have given to this sand question, I think it poor encouragement to one who has tried to do his best for the harbour. Everything I have brought forward in the Board has been a benefit 1 to the harbour. Now, sir, let me tell you that you may write in praise of the ' engineer as mueh as you like. How the engineers must laugh in their sleeves when they read the reports of the News on harbour matters, 'I ho sand pump is only money thrown aw.iy, Ho '-a get new boilers and ecgit.es and then he won't atop tho sand g ing in t.h« harbour, One day's pumping andyai are on a bard bottom and no a and am! ' tho sand wjll still accumuJ.ita at the root as it does now and sill a'sj com- ' into the ha.btui'. I am tiling y. u what is going to linppsn before everybody knows; but not lik-.i fho ktNr " boy, parhap-, as t am only an f.ma'ru engineer I don't, know. Oh, yes, tim ' wili'tell let me tell you. I will clear the harbour of sand for lors shillings tlvui the engineers can for pounds and no' 1 make any blunder. But, p BI haps, the harbourmaster will bo ab!o to give an i increased depth of water a"; t lie wharf as I 80 much has be<n pumped fri-m outside ' to inside to fi 1 up the harbour. It will { please some of the members w> o take j great interest in the Harbourmaster's i report to see the increased dejHh of S

water at the wharf, through the sand pump pumping water into the harbour. Sir, only for the Chairman's contumacy and the money thrown away on the sand pump, we would have saved the ratepayers paying a rate this year. Mind that Opunake ratepayers.—l am, etc., 1 L, Saiiten. P.S.—Sir, allow me to tell you that I never set myself up for a marine engineer, but, being one of the oldest settlers in Taranaki, I have taken a great interest in the harbour, and given both time and money and study to it, and have watched the passing events and had considerable to do with the beach in my time, so I ought to have some idea of what is required in this sand question as well as an engineer. US.