Our Home Letter

Otago Witness, Issue 1456, 11 October 1879, Page 6

Our Home Letter

August 14th. The ably-written journal, Iron, has been Bounding a not untimely note ef warning on the wholesale destruction of timber the world over, and the disastrous consequences of reckless tree-felling even in countries well supplied with forests by nature. In the United States and Canada, where the object is to get at the virgin soil enriched by the fallen leaves of centuries, the process bears the ominous name of a " clearing," which it is in more senses than one. In the Old World the Russian possessions on the Caucasus ai c threatening to become untenable, owing to the wholesale destruction of the forests to provide fuel for Caspian steamers, and where were once rich and fertile valleys are now barren and arid gullies. In Australia, still more liable to- drought from its physical peculiarities, the waste of timber is seriously alarming the colonists, especially in South Australia, where, if restrictive measures are not rapidly adopted, it is predicted that there will result "aneverincreasing aridity of climate and everdiminishing fertility of soil — a scorching, arid summer, and an Intensely cold and dry winter, with no intervening spring." Of course there is timber enough in the world to long "outlast this generation, but ifc is reasonably argued that, as with our coal supply, heed must be taken for the wants of posterity. The effects of denuding any district in any oountry of the world of its forests are so immediate and disastrous that it is extraordinary that replanting, the simple and easy remedy, is not everywhere enforced by law and authority. The subject is one in which New Zealand is so interested that no excuse need be made for calling attention to the article In Iron, although the Colony may proudly say that it long ago recognised the paramount importance of both the danger and the remedy, as exemplified in Sir J. Vogel'a enthusiastic scheme for the Conservation of State Forests, the first fruits of which were the papers presented to the Houses of Assembly, and the engagement and report of Captain Campbell Walker. The Standard, in a leading artiole directing special attention to the statistics published, advocates the scientific and systematic replanting every year of an area equal to that which may have been denuded to supply the wants of the people, and referring to the very alow growth of most species of forest trees, as compared with the swiftness of their destruction, pointa out the advisability of the bluegum and such rapidly-ma taring trees being planted. It also recommends that all local bodies Bhould plant trees by the waysideß, and thus establish avenues of fine timbertrees such as meet the eye everywhere in France. No doubt this seems a very small help towards the desired object ; but in time those avenues would become more than valuable, and would repay more than their cost. la a comparatively new country, like New Zealand, where new townships are constantly being laid out, new roads made, and established towns extended, the adoption of this course would be very easy and simple and cheap ; and the country would gain not only a large additional area of plantation,,but secure some of the attraotiveness of French towns. There is pretty much the same feeling in the Colony about its timber Bupply as in England about coal. "If there's enough to last our time and a hundred yeara after, why should we trouble ourselves ?" The sentiment is a3 wrong in one case as the other : even more so in the former, for_ the destruction of a living forest has immediate conseqences aB well as future, while the consumption of a forest ages since dead can only .affect the future. And when one thinks of the enormous demand for wood for domestic use, for furnace?, for the lake steamers, and even for locomotives, even the immense woodlands of New Zealand must be beginning to feel $he strain. The threatened war ia the Colony excites considerable' alarm amongst t many good people, with the Zalu scare aad the remembrance of former sanguinary struggles with the Maoris upon them. It is next to impossible to persuade these people that the summary extinguishing of Te Whiti and his Parihaka followers would affect the rest of the Colony, and especially the South Island, &s little as an outbreak among the convicts at Dartmoor would affect the inhabitants of London. The fixed idea of the average EDglishmau, much more of the average Englishwoman, who has never been to the Colonies, and has no relatives therein to send enlightening letters, is, that New Zealand is a little place where everybody knows everybody else, where a war meanß imminent danger of being killed and eaten by overwhelming hordes of " Maoris," from which the only escape is by fleeing over the mountains to Tasmania, or Brisbane, or Sydney, or some other place contiguous on the mainland. This is one of the notions people have about our distant possessions. Even the Government were caught napping the other day. A certain chaplain in Natal fell ill, and had to be ordered on return to England. The Colonial Office wore wired what cours« should be adopted in the meantime. The reply was : " A new chaplain will be sent out per next mail steamer : meantime could not one of Cape chaplains ride over on Sundays?" The rev. gentleman would have had time to compose a rare sermon, for his Sabbath day's journey would have been about a thousand miles I

The cablegrams and letters of correspondents from New Zealand have, however, threatened a Taranaki outbreak as more than possible, and a few days ago Mr P. J. Smyth asked the Secretary of State if ho could give any information, and "if it was true that preparations were being made to ' settle at ©nee and for ever ths Native difficulty ' in accordance with the ideas of the settlers." Sir M. Hickß- Beach said : "I have received no communication on the subject. From that I infer that in the opinion of the New Zealand Government there was nothing very serious in the state of affairs, nor any apprehensions of disturbances." OoloniataatHome, who hhd received letters and newspapers early in the week by the Saa Francisco mail, ■were considerably surprised at the Oolonial Secretary's reply, as it waß manifest jbat the New Zealand Government did think the matter serious, and that there were apprehensions of disturbances, The general

belief is that Fir George Grey wished further to mark hia sense of independence of the Imperial Government, and that he has not thought it worth while to trouble the Secretary with details or even cursory mention of so trivial a matter as a Maori outbreak. It is not so eaaUy intelligible, however, why Sir Hercules Robinson has not apparently advised his official chief in dispatches. If Sir George Grey really did not wish the Go vernment to be officially informed, and the Marquis of Normanby had still been Governor, we may be pretty sure there would have been a dispatch ! Colonists at Home are fully aware that even if hostilities do break, or have broken out, the struggle will be short, sharp, and decisive, confined to a very limited area, and the last effort of the Maoris. But the majority of English are unable to grasp the initiation ; and if there is one thing they doubt more than another it i 3 that the colonists would have strong contingents of friendlies arrayed on their side. They can understand a Fingo or a Swazl fighting a Zulu, or a Ghoorka an Afghan, but they seem to stop at the idea of Maori against Maori ; and the history of former Maori wars is so dimly known to them, that to fall back upon them for argument and illustration is of little avail. Some of the papers display lamentable incapability of laying ' hold of the real situation, but the London dailies are fairly correct in their estimate, owing, to some extent, to the reassuring answer of the Colonial Secretary, and deprecate the idea of real danger. The Zulu War, however, has given people a horror of a abruggle in a colony, and inclined them to magnify unduly the meaning of it.

I do not know who the correspondent in Wellington of the London Standard is, but his letter concerning the threatened outbreak is a strange composition. At the outset he roars an 'twere a nightingale, and at the end as a lion indeed, in an alarmist postscript headed " later," and reading as follows: — "It is feared that hostilities are imminent. Large reinforcements have been sent to the disturbed districts. Ministers arc doing their best to prevent bloodshed Should war occur, severe fighting may be looked for." This postscript, with part of the preceding letter, has been widely copied into every provincial paper, with an attractive heading. Possibility has rapidly grown into certainty, and an idea existß that another Maori war has bloodily broken out. There can be no doubt that, war or no war, much harm has been done, and the flow of healthy emigration will assuredly be checked. The Agent-General and his officers will of course do all in their pawer to promulgate a correct view of affairs, and to point out, even if there is war, its petty nature. But the classes who are likely to offer themselves as emigrants are precieely those who would be most deterred by the prevalent rumours ; and perhaps as much harm has already been done as if the Colony had started a special plague or cholera of its own. All colonists here hope anxiously to see soon a cablegram stating that the Waimate Plains are not again to see battles and marches.

These are days of wonders, and electricians and engineers are the conjurers. To most people the idea of throwing a viaduct over the English Channel would appear utterly visionary ; yet it is one seriously and scientifically put forward. Sir John Hawkshaw has his scheme of tunnelling under the Channel, and it is straightway voted a chimera. Nevertheless) work has been quietly going on, and although nothing has yet been attempted towards the tunnel itßelf, shafts have been sunk, borings made, and a vast amount of money spent, but not wasted, in obtaining valuable preliminary information. The result has been to prove th at in all human probability the project is perfectly feasible, aad the only difficulty is the money. The engineer's estimate, which I happen to have seen, puts the cost at some twelve round millions : this of course means half as much again in reality, and people are chary of investing money in a scheme which cannot be absolutely certain of success, and at the best can yield nothing for 20 years. Now comes forward M. de Sainte Aune, an eminent French engineer, and in place of the tunnel proposes a huge aerial viaduct from Folkestone to the Cape Grisnez, embracing also the construction of a port of refuge in mid-channel. A stupendous and prodigious project ! And this is the outline of Mr de Saint Aune's conception.

About halfway between Grisnez and Folkestone, that is, nine miles from the first and 12 from the second, ia the large and dangerous Varne Rock, about two and a-half miles broad. It lies in the direct line of the proposed viaduct, and here would be constructed a huge abutment pier. Hard by is the Calbart reef, and by founding a breakwater upon this and part of the rock, a harbour of refuge would replace a great channel of danger. For the rest, solid piers would be raised upon huge and widaJy-spread foundations of rocks cast into the gea and consolidated by Roman cement. Distances of only 350 to 400 feet would separate these immense towers of masonry, rising some 120 feet above the level of the sea, aad leaving space for the tallest-eparred ship to pas* beneath the superstructure This would be of steel, after the design of the most successful girder-constructions known to prac tice. At either end of the viaduct, and on the Varne rook, the girder system would bo replaced by Cyclopean arches of massive stone, of a span and height never yet essayed. Across the deepest water would stretch a vast tubular bridge, such as Stephenson built over the Menai Straits, and the New York engineers from their city to Brooklyn.

The magnificence and immensity of this Titanic conception speak for themselves, but we are naively told that the details arc not yet decided upon. It is quite possible that even if M. de Sainte Aune succeeds in finding foundations for his piers, which many engineers doubt, and rears his solid towers of masonry, the construction of the platform, which will have to resist the terrible lateral strains of a channel tempest and accommodate itself to the varying expansions of summer and winter, may baffle him. The distaEco between the K ,piers, too, Beems small for the large venaels ot to day safely to pass through. It is premature, however, and ungracious to suggest such objections. The mind prefers rather to dwell on the imaginary spectacle of the viaduct constructed

and complete, majestically spanniug the channel, with the commerce-laden argosies of the world passing and repassing beneath its aerial platform, and guided on their way by myriads of refulgent electric lights, shedding their beams upon the stormy waters of the channel from each massive pier ; or of the knitting together of the bonds of friendship between France and England, by the inhabitants of Grisnez and Folkestone walking over to have a friendly gossip with one another, and a cup of tea, or something stronger, at the refreshment bars which, it ie to be hoped, are included in the project, and which would be immediately taken in hand by the indefatigable Spiera and Pond, and their eminently respectable young women. And yet M. de Ste. Aune is neither a madman nor a dreamer ; he is a very eminent French engineer, who in all sober earnestness brings his long-pondered plans before the world, and undertakes to execute them at once. For a million francs he estimates he can obtain all the necessary preliminary knowledge, test-models, and so on : for three hundred millions, or twelve millions sterling, he will build the viaduct. The Chambers of Commerce of France and Belgium, to the number of nearly 100, cordially support him : he has the countenance of his Government, and he is now on his way to England to obtain that of ours, and to dazzle the imaginations of English capitalists into parting with their money for the furtherance of his gigantic scheme. So that it may be that even the men and women of this generation will baulk the sea of its horrors, and from the secure elevation of 120 feet laugh at the sufferers on steamers below. The Macaulay of the future, disdaining so trite and paltry a conception as the New Zealander on a mosa-grown pier of London Bridge, will set the unambitious Zulu, in glowing periods, upon a Beaweed-covered tower of the Channel viaduct ; and last, but not least, some New Zealand genius will throw a counterpart over Cook's Strait from Cape Terawhiti to the Nelson shore.