GOVERNMENT ENGINEERING.

Grey River Argus, Volume 21, Issue 3097, 19 July 1878, Page 2

GOVERNMENT ENGINEERING.

The Government paper in Wellington, in its issue of the 2nd inst, contains a leading article upon the numerous in- . stances in which the want of knowledge . and scientific 'ignorance of the engineering ; department of the Colony have ' been displayed. Oar contemporary commences l by saying-:-" It -is impossible, at the : present time, to form even an approximate estimate pf the < loss the Colony has : sustained, in the carrying out of our public ; works under the Pablic Works and Immigration Policy, through the employ- : ment of inexperienced and inefficient ; eugiueera It is probably the worse ; Colonial instance on record, where bo much public money has been waated, and so much engineering incapacity displayed." Ifc then proceeda to recapitulate the ; most flagrant instances of engineering blunders, and its references include the following :— " Who, may we' ; ask, is responsible for the Kaipara fiaßco ? 900,000 cubic feet of heart of totara waited in au attempt to .build an embankment^ that was carried away. when a slight strain was put on the piling where - the least pressure obtained. Who is responsible for the route adopted for the line from Auckland to Helensville ? The Maoris even wonder why the line was not taken around the beach. Have our readers never heard ; of the steep grades and toy. line from New Plymouth to Waitara, aud how living horse power* has afc times to be called into requisition to supplement the ; inadequate efforts of the dead? Have they heard' no stories of pile driving and; bridge building between Napier andPakipaki? Have they any' recollection of the collapse |of the Brunner Bridge, and the cost enI tailed on tho country in taking the line of I road around fhe hill sidej where genera-. i tions of dead Maoris sleep, or did sleep, i outside the Greymouth Town ? Have fchey forgotten that this same line of road has cost the colony double the amount the imported engineers estimated it to cost? Have they ever heard of the vagaries of construction on the Picton' line — a viaduct on a curve without a -necessity, batters so steep. that the unskilled thought they were' graded co fall, . 'culverts inserted where bridges would j hardly suffice, and bridges placed where ; culverts would have done, banks nearly a Smile long over flooded country,- withoufc a' icnlverfc or water way in their; length.'short cuttings varying the different ends, ■ and other eccentricities ? If they have not, the Picton people kno..; the story i well, and have -at different times sug-> gesfced that the errors should be condoned because perchance ife was a maiden engineering effort. Coming nearer home, is it not understood that fche famous Hutt line, along which the rolling stock grinds painfully, cost as much as a perfectly straight line would have done had onebeen originally laid out? while it is notorious that the Foxton- Wanganui line was carried up the Wangaehu Hill at one bf the steepeafc grades and sharpest curves' of any railway in the colony ; not that it wa3 afc all necessary to rwcand the hill bufc because, if the line had gone robhd tie section as a whole, it would have cost more per mile, although not more in the aggregate. The average was kept right at the cosfc of a hill which runs away with an enormous amount in Working expenses.