THE WAIMAKARIRI.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19451, 26 October 1928, Page 13

THE WAIMAKARIRI.

ToVrHB EDITOB OP THE PBESS. g; r __x venture to support your article of this morning and put forward a few main reasons why the Trust's proposed loan for £IOO,OOO _ should; be vigorously opposed and rejected.. L The present Trust's proposals have been inspired by the Public Works Department, who, with tlie.r usual eagerness to spend other peoples money without regard to economy .seek entirely to dominate the river control affairs of the province. ■ 2. The present proposals £ii'o _ bejiig rushed through in such haste that it looks like a desire to cdyer: up the blunders of the past £™ s t- s topWks (hall-marked by the P.W.D.) in the wrong place and in the wrong direction, put there in complete defiance or Christchureh (ratepayers, .and to-day menacing the richest land in the whole "I!* The Bill, which gives authority to the Trust to plunder the city area, and which is a legacy from the past Trust, was rUßhed through Parliament in an amazingly short time by P. W.IJ. officials, and it now casts upon Christchurch a most unfair burdem of taxatl,lT' Not one penny further . should. be spent either out of revenue or/ loan money except for bare immediate necessities x until the whole of the, rateable area of the Trust is entirely reclassified according to our own estimate of the proportionate risk from floods and. not according to the erroneous assumptions of tne Trust's advisers. I c (N.B.—We see the injustice ot Spreydon, Woolston, Opawa, Sydenham, and in fact the whole- business area rated as A land, paying the highest rates, and stated by the Trust's advisers to be in greater danger than jjjie land on the very banks of the . . 5. No river scheme in history lias ever finalised the matter in the manner claimed by the P.W.D. engineers. Sir Alexander Gibb's dictum is that the cost would be of the order of several millions. 6. The past Trust continuously played •on the. fears of Christchureh with false alarms, and a section of the present Trust do likewise. (See the recent map where the name Fendalton appears in large letters across an old overflow channel skilfully drawn so as to convey the impression that the Waimakariri is due any minute to swamp this desirable suburb. ■ This overflow channel does not exist, ?nd there has been no water in it-for possibly 75 y 7. (£ne explanation of the £45_,000 subsidy is to save the railway bridge from eventual destruction and coax Christchureh ratepayers to pay for the result of grave errors ,of judgment by officials in the past. 8. No part of the proposed cut m any particular can possibly benefit Christchureh except for a very occasional hold oip of the North road traffic, and no arrangement of the proposed cut or any other cut will take the shingle out to sea in our time. A modified cut could be made to use the present bridge instead of scrapping it. 9. This is the most important and cogent reason for caution. Whatever is done, whatever cut is made,. will take at least two years t6 complete, so that Christchureh. in any case for two years, must be in danger (a false wolf cry) which has been iricontestably proved to have no foundation in fact —Yours, etc., \ H. M. CHRYSTALL. Christchureh, October 25th, 1928.