The Press WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1946. River Control

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24503, 28 February 1945, Page 6

The Press WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1946. River Control

Discussing methods of river control at Geraldine, as reported yesterday, the Minister of Works said enough to show once more that he thinks primarily, if not wholly, of mechanical methods, and of improvements in mechanical methods. Catchment boards, he said, for example, Would have big problems to deal with: they Would “ have to shift millions "of yards of shingle”. Necessarily, “the type of machine to do “the job” would have to be sought and found; and the Minister announced that he had found such a machine—a • dragline scoop that makes “ the bulldozer look like “what the bulldozer makes the “ wheelbarrow look The purchase of machines like that was essential: “Posterity is in jeopardy “unless the remedy is applied to “ flooding Such machines may indeed be useful. If the “whole “problem of river control”, as the Minister promised,'is “tackled in a “Scientific, ‘ and modern “ fashion ”, the comprehensive solution may call for them. It may also call for techniques of many other and very different kinds. One thing is certain: that a Comprehensive solution will “in a scientific, skil- “ fUI, and modern fashion ” coordinate measures that reach from the mountain side to the plain, from 'river source. to river mouth, and correlate the techniques of half a dozen sciences! One conjecture is not improbable; that the technique of the concrete-mixer and the dragline scoop will not be supreme. But Mr Semple gives every sign of having decided in advance that the comprehensive solution is the power of the giant machine, overpowering earth and Water; and the suggestion of his repeated statements is unfortunately confirmed by the want of any real progress in organising the researches that must inform policy in river .control and soil conservation; River control attempted by the methods of the engineer, working on bed and bank and mouth, and by those methods alone Of predominantly, are not “ scientific, “skilful, and modern”. They do not, ahd cannot, in Mr Semple’s best-directed phrase, remove “ the “deep-seated cause”—the deepseated causes, rather—of floods and erosion. The test case is that,of the Mississippi. In his second reading Speech bn the SOU Conservation and Rivers Control felll, Mr Semple adduced. the achievemfent of the Mississippi control engineers as an example of what could .be done. Events - had already exposed the ■achievement as a colOsSal failure, tfhe. floods Of 1936 had Been the Wildest ahd ftiost destructive in the history of the river. They marked, Ift fact, the fuming point of policy. To ignore it'in New Zealand will be a disastrous mistake.