ACCESS TO THE SEA

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22082, 3 May 1937, Page 4

ACCESS TO THE SEA

TO THB EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir, —In reply to Mr Hunter, I wish to say that the extract reported from my speech was fragmentary, and the loss of the qualifying context may have lent my remarks an arrogant tone which, I am sure, was not conveyed to the members of the confer6I2CC* Nevertheless, I am willing and eager to stand by my contention that a referendum is an expression of “uninformed opinion.” If one single elector remains ignorant of the essential facts relating to the tunnel road scheme, it is nobody’s fault but his own. The facts have been published repeatedly since Messrs Coode, Son, and Matthews’s report first appeared. Mr Hunter surely cannot be serious when he says that the reason why so much indecision obtains in public affairs is that a number of men assume the right to speak and act as if they owned the city. I am sorry to disagree with Mr Hunter, but I consider that the indecision is directly due to the - absence of such men from public life. Would that we had such men! We need them and all that they assume is that they were elected to do something on behalf of those who elected them. Mr Hunter, suggests that the “average workingman” may know as much about public affairs as I do. I quite agree. His specification of a “working man” is his own idea. I should not have thought it necessary to distinguish between one kind of man and another. Let' us analyse this windy abstraction which Mr Hunter calls a “mandate from the electors”—something which he apparently regards as the inevitable outcome of a referendum. Suppose we take a lesson from our past experience of referenda, and. instead of indulging in sentimental flapdoodle, let us stick to observed facts. Take 10 average electors, not necessarily average "working men,” but just “average men,” which is all I am concerned with. One of these will go to the poll with an intelligent opinion founded on all available information, and record his vote. Another will go and record a vote solely out of consideration for his own private , interests. He may be a “capitalist,” or even a “wage-earner.” The other eight either forget about the poll, go to a football match, take 1 out their best girl, or do not think it matters much, as they have elected somebody as their representative to act in these matters, and if they cannot make up their minds, what have they been elected for? Anyhow, they do not vote. I would go so far as to say that we have never yet had an intelligent response from the public, through a referendum. I not because people have not the intelligence to judge, but because they will not take the trouble either to inform themselves or to vote. “Mandate”—just a word, and talk about “mandates” is political humbug'. What we need. If we wish to avoid everlasting delay through public indecision, is a body of men who have sufficient courage, to act for the people, as they were elected to do. Let us wake up in the morning and find something done—a bridge over the Styx railway, ja 40-hour week, or an East Coast railway! Who said mandates? Anyhow, we can do the talking afterwards—on election day!— Yours, etc,, JOHN GUTHRIE. May 2. 1937. TO THB EDITOR OP THB PBESS. Sir,—The tunnel road hydra has again raised? Its head, and bids fair to destroy our only chance of good access to the sea; an estuary port. Ever since the First Four Ships landed, Port Christchurch has been the goal of thinking people interested in our access to the sea problem. The early settlers showed their wisdom and foresight by keeping the canal reserve for posterity, in the hope that one day we might have a port of our own. The present city fathers, however, seem to be blinded to its possibilities. I wonder why? * The pros and cons of the two propositions are sufficiently well known not to need repetition. Enough to say that the balance Is strongly in favour of the estuary project, Lyttelton as a port for ,pn expanding Christchurch is useless. Dr. J. Guthrie, in his admirable little homily on our people, accuses them of a genius for indecision, besides possessing other unpardonable weaknesses. Surely such ah outburst from a public man is childish. The people are not in the wrong; rather accuse of muddling the local bodies who are their executives. Further, because Dr. Guthrie (whose province is medicine) favours a tunnel road, It is not necessarily the correct solution to the problem. Some time ago an institution called the Port Christchurch League flourished in our midst. May I ask what has happened to this august body? Now is the time for its members to ’gird up their loins and fight for the salvation of our city. In conclusion. I condemn the conference for opposing a referendum. The fact of the matter probably is that they are afraid of the people demanding the estuary port with no uncertain voice. The least that should be done Is that an independent and unbiased engineer be called in to put before the public an estimate of the costs of both proposals, so that they may judge for themselves whether the saving on the tunnel road, if any, would compensate for the. decided loss in efficiency.—Yours, etc., ' , , no „ T. G. HAMILTON. May 1, 1937. TO THB KDTTOB OB THB PRESS. Sir. —It seems to me that access to the sea is still, like Mahomet’s coffin, “J the air, as I consider that the weight the J} ve dissenting bodies balances those 23 voting "aye” on the tunnel road proposal. As Mr Hunter points out, several of these bodies are overlapping, and some are of not much account as representing, the public that Pays the piper. It looks as if this bait of £500,000 may jockey us into doing something foolish, when it would be much wiser to let sleeping dogs lie, let well alone for a few years, be content to make haste slowly, as the unemployed at work on the side channels know how to do. As one writer has pointed out, goods may get more dispatch when the Railway Department gets more goods sheds facilities at this end. If Canterbury Is still “paying through the nose,” after all these years, since she handed over her provincial-built tunnel, this injustice (if there is still one in existence and remaining) can be adjusted simply by a reduction in freight rates, and book-keeping. Mr Richardson points out that Lyttelton is thus far distant from Christchurch, and never can the twain be brought closer together. Thank heaven, neither do we want a Port Christchurch, as It would tend to spoil one of our chief characteristics—a garden city—uncontaminated by an attached port. We should make the best of our nature-given Lyttelton, and nobody can tell us better how to do this than Mr Cyrus Williams. He could tell us a lot about the moving and the movements of silt in Lyttelton harbour; and no man, perhaps, could make a nearer guess as to what the silt problem would be in the estuary. Is the honest Dunedinite satiflgd with his harbour? It Is Mr Richardson who says that it might be possible to make Christchurch into a port city, so as to be in the race with our three rivals. 1 turn again to Mr Hunter, and am relieved to see him say that the Government will take jolly good Care that we do nothing foolish. It was some weeks ago we had some writer who seemed to know what he was writing about in the matter of

tunnels. He told us what a poisonous hole our tunnel would be. and how expensive to keep ventilated. As a sop to the tunnellers, and those who wish to see improved road access, it was pointed out that the Evans Pass road could be improved by a short tunnel put in at the hairpin bend on this side. I should like to ask all Port Christchurchers to bear in mind some of the examples we have at our doors of what wind and water may do in shifting and forming sand and shingle banks. This reminds me that the Public Works Department owes me a monument, which can be built on the spot where I made the first stone groyne, within a mile from where the Clarence bridge is being built. (No hurry. Mr Semple may finish the bridge first.) Yes! In the north , there is still the old Waimakariri making his wilful mouths at us. In the estuary, I forget whether it was one or two floods, and do not know what currents, which shifted some chains of sand dunes from ' the north to the south side of the channel, and plumped them down in the Sumner paddling pool. Further south, there is the well-thought-out scheme to control the level of Lake Ellesmere. So far, the travelling shingle has had the last word to say on this matter’. The Harbour Board at Timaru complacently watched their mole create a valuable flat land adjunct to their town; while at Oamaru, the eroding sea threatens to engulf the White Queen City. If we are determined to make a grab for that £500,000, and it is not to be spent just as so much dole to the unemployed. how about one or two more moles in Lyttelton harbour? Meanwhile, I am one of those “wait-and-see chaps.—Yours, etc., PETER TROLOVE. May 1, 1937. • TO THE EDITOB 07 , THE PRESS. Sir On the evidence shown on Thursday last there appears to. be no doubt that certain bodies, councils, boards, and unions were given to understand that the Government had given an undertaking to build the tunnel road free of cost to Canterbury. Seeing that this assurance is now found to be untrue, how do these councils, boards, and unions, etc., now stand? They have now the plain truth before them. Will they not reconsider it and get on to the other tack and make straight, for the Sumner bar? Even half the half-million would install a safe access for coasters of a class. Anyone with a grain of imagination can visualise what'the successful inauguration of a port, even such as this, would lead to.—Yours, etc. NEW ERA. May 1, 1937.