CORRESPONDENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 31, 6 February 1900, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

SHORTAGE OF WATER. (To the Editor.) Sir,—l am somewhat surprised a1 the remarks of your correspondent Joseph Becroft upon the above subject. The burden of Ms cry is thai nothing has been done but incessant talk, talk, talk. I wo\ild like to ask him this question, and I think it is a fair one, seeing- that he has been foi years, and up till the last three or four months, a member of the Council: (1) Where is the best place to gel an auxiliary supply from; (2) how are you to get it without you first provide the money? Will he in the meantime answer these two questions?' ] ask the second because.he says that whilst I have been Mayor nothing has been done. This is, of course, like many other wild statements made from time to time, absolutely untrue for Mr Becroft knows that we have passed a Bill through the House giving- us the right to borrow £100,00 C for city purposes. He further knows that £50,000 of that is now upon the market, and that we have to wall until the 31st of March to ascertain the amount that will be subscribed He also knows that we had almost determined, to take our auxiliary supplj from Onehunga, when lie with others voted against it and drove us fronI there, perhaps wisely so, too; thai ' since then we could do nothing1 simplj j because Whilst there was a watei famine in '97 and '98 no attempt was j made to gauge the streams arounc I Auckland, and so whilst securing options at Henderson and leasing- c pumping site, we could go no furthei 1 until we knew what water we could depend upon in the driest season. 01 the year. If he during that summei of '97 had urged upon the Council tc send out. their engineers to gau"-e these streams, when at their worst we should before this have taken action in the direction he desires; but that not having been done we have been compelled to wait to test them ourselves. T am quite aware that pipes were procured whilst he was in the Council, but surely he does not take credit for that, the only thing that can be said in their favour" is thai they were cheap, but they are goino to cause us considerable trouble if we are going to use them, as they are altogether too small for our purpose The very smallest size for present purposes is a 12-inch pipe, to get the quantity through that we require to augment our present supply. So far as I know everyt'hino- that could have been done during the past twelve months has been done to push on the water question, but in doing this we may have appeared to go too slow; but it is sometimes better to do that than to rush in thoughtlessly and by our action make ourselves ridiculous.—l am, etc., ... £>• GOLDIE.