The Wairarapa Daily SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1888. Bad Engineering.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2861, 31 March 1888, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1888. Bad Engineering.

The section of railway between Wellington and the Hutt was apparently the strongest link in the line, and the one least likely to suffer wreck. Its fate is eminently suggestive of bad engineering, the chronic disease of which our public works in the colony suffer. Whenever there is much rain, a big wind, or a high tide in New Zealand, wo hear of broken bridges, fractured acqueducts, or collapsed railway sections, and there can be but little doubt but that there is a vast amount of bad engineering palmed off on the public in tins colony. Engineers, smothered with testimonials, construct important public works at a phenomenal cost; they are feted and almost worshipped, till by-and-by their masterpieces are convulsed by a big wave or a river ' fresh,' and it. becomes evident that someone has blundered.' If we confined -our observations merely to the Wairarapa we could point to instance after iustauce of public works of importance which have proved palpable failures. Take the celebrated Masterton gas tank as a hideous example, or even two local bridges on the railway line which were washed away on various occasions, to say nothing of some very shaky smaller structures. Tho lesson which the disaster of Friday last teaches is that it is wise to shun as if it were a pestilence any inferior engineering labor. The loss direct and indirect .by the late destruction of the harbor section of the line will probably be about twenty thousand pounds, and all this could have been saved if at the onset a capable engineer had supervised the work.