THE GAS QUESTION.

Evening Star, Issue 12523, 6 June 1905, Page 2

THE GAS QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I have waited now for some considerable length of time for Mr John MTtonald, the self-styled free-lance, to reply to my letter of last month, and have up to the present only so far elicited the vaguest of promises that I shall be answered if I disclose my identity. Even though I would much liko to gratify him on that point, I have, unhappily, to state that at the present juncture I cannot do so; but I promise to satisfy his desire at no very distant date. His hesitancy to answer, however, doesn’t impress one as being characteristic of the sincerity to the ratepayers generally that he so ardently wished to make believe, and, saying the least of it, is slightly suggestive of—oh, well, something else. I am indeed sorry to learn (my informant being John M'Donald himself, in his letter) that the City gas enginer isn’t allowed the opportunity to answer correspondents through the columns of the Press. I fancy, - howfcver, that I have read letters bearing his name on more than one occasion in attempted defence of his position. If tho City jjas engineer were to approach tho City Council they perhaps would remove such embargo—if such an edict were ever issued—for it would indeed bo more satisfactory fat all to get an explana-* tion direct than one indirect and. secondhand. It would, I am certain, be more satisfactory to the gas engineer, in more ways than one. In one of the City papers lately I read a lengthy and most lucid interview held with 'Mr Jamea Bradley, the gas engineer of the Westport Corporation Gasworks, and it was most characteristic of its opposition to the findings of the Dunedin gas enginear. In not one part was there any acquiescence; everything diametrically opposed to the contentions of Mr H. B. Courtis, Something must be radically wrong somewhere, especially when one takes into consideration that Mr Bradley’s findings are based on a nineteen years’ experience with Westport coal, used in a works which the engineer states are not up to date. The Dunedin Gasworks establishment is said to bo obsolete. This isn’t altogether correct, and is very apt to mislead. There are three of the very latest regenerator furnaces, and something like forty-six retorts in the Dunedin Gasworks, and if only understood would do away altogether with the inadequate part of the argument, which we hear so much about. I am only speaking about the new port. The Westport Corporation Gasworks, with all its drawbacks, can, under tho management of its engineer, obtain over 12,000. cubic feet of gas, of eighteen candle-power, 60 per cent, of coke (the finest in tho world), and ton gallons of tar per ton of coal carbonised. Yet the Dunedin engineer, with his avowed superiority of coal, cannot obtain anything like that make of gas per ton of coal—not even with the plus air suggested by one of your correspondents (" Visitor”) as being introduced, owing to the xaai& tbst be talks about as printing qq

the City works between the different foremen. The coke, too, cannot be compared to th£ Westport coke. As for the quality of our tor, the least said concerning it the better. # Your correspondent "Visitor," when he mentioned about the. cut-throat rivalry supposed to exist amongst the foremen on the City works, might have mentioned something about the discontent that exists amongst the stokers in consequence of the extra work imposed upon them. I was highly amused, when bearing about this discontent, at the way tho engineer met tho deputation that waited on him. He coolly asked them that if they imagined that they wore overworked, they should put their complaint in writing, and wait upon the Gas Committee—rather a climb-down for such an austere person as Mr Courtis is reputed to be. Surelv, occupying the position as manager of the works, he should know what constitutes a day's work without asking the men to waste the Corporation's time in an attempted analysis of what constitutes eight hours' labor. There was a time, methinks, when such presumption would have received from the engineer a torrent of satire. But things have changed —for a time, at least—and they (the deputation) might yet admit that even Admiral Togo has been outclassed in strategy. The whole business ia reminiscent of a former invitation extended 'to the water gas hands after a certain incident that happened in that particular branch of tho works a year or so back. I am informed that the gas engineer denied most emphatically that he ever mixed the water gas tar with the coal gas tar. Surely my informant must be wrong in this detail. If not, then perhaps Mr John MTDonald will venture a scientific opinion as to what became of tho thousands of gallons of water gas tar that were pumped into the hydraulic mains of the Dunedin Gasworks, and also enlighten us why, at the same time, fires -were lighted under the tar runs the whole length of the gashouse.—l am, etc., New Zealand Coax. June 5. j !