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Evening Star, Issue 17324, 12 April 1920, Page 4

The City Engineer is now busy collecting material and St. C!air Beach, plant for the erection of a groyne or groynes on the threatened waterfront at the Ocean Beach. In our opinion, for all the effect the proposed work is likely to have, the piles may just as well be driven in the yard at the rear of the Town Hall or any other handy locality. This most belated action seems to us as savoring of a sop to the public. No one hopes that a groyne will have any more effect on the advancing waves than King Canute's command. But it is an instance of the alertness of the authorities and a guarantee of their fatherly interest in the well-being of the ratepayers. Should disaster eventually occur, no on€ will then be ahle to say that nothing was done to prevent it. The great amount of correspondence on the sea's encroachment at the Sandhills shows the interest being taken Jn the matter. The majority of writers express . eminently sensible views, and hardly one of them has a good word to say for the groynes. They are considered to have had either no' effect or a bad effect. As to the cause of the disappearance of the beach, now being followed by a deadly attack on the Sandhills—the ramparts of the Flat—it is attributed primarily to the long prevalence of south-westerly winds (almost four years now, with brief intermissions), aggravated bv the building of the Esplanade. It is many years since we protested against interference with the Sandhills from the landward side. But all protests were ridiculed or disregarded, and now the hills are in places but a razorback, which each high tide reduces steadily by nibbles at the base, followed by slides from the top, and the sand goes out to sea. It is, in fact, almost a standard local ;joke to say that it is doubtful whether St. Kilda will amalgamate with the City or the sea first. The-bulk of the Flat is some lft 6in below high-tide level—not 7ft, as one scare correspondent alleged a little while ago. Had St. Kilda been part of Greater Dunedin the danger might have -been tackled in time by the City—that is to say, there might have been committee meetings aud'reports, and the referring back of reports ad infinitum in approved Town Hall style. Councillors mistake these proceedings for something accomplished, something done. The seat however, is not impressed, and that is the main thing in the eyes, of the average man. The Ocean Beach Domain Board, with finances on a scale to meet payments for planting marram grass, could not be expected to undertake a big engineering work. Fresh brains and fresh "methods are wanted; and, even so, a promptness and energy s0 far unheard of in our experience of local government mav vet be too late. " "