THE HAWKE'S BAY DISASTER.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVX, Issue 3129, 15 May 1897, Page 4

THE HAWKE'S BAY DISASTER.

The following additional subscriptions have been received at the City Council offices for the Hawke’s Bay fund Mr Jacob Joseph, per the Key H. Van btaveron, .£26 5s ; Lodge ”L’ Amour de la Verito,” per Sir .Robert Stout, ; Lunacy Department, farther collection by Mr Thomas Ward and Councillor Myers, £Z 19s 6d.

The Hawke’s Bay Relief Fund, says our Palmerston correspondent, will benefit to the amount of a little over .£3 by the proceeds of the “ social ” and dance which took place in Mr Forster-Pratt’a woolshed on the evening of the 12th. inst. The affair passed off moat successfully. Besides dancing, there was singing, together with recitations. Refreshments were provided abundantly by a number of the settlers. THE HAWKE’S BAY DISASTER—INSURANCE AGAINST FUTURE LOSS BY FLOODS. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —There is no security against such a flood occurring again in a short time and at styort intervals; nothing more than the chance that so heavy rain does not generally come often. Thirty years ago the same thing happened, of which I shall give only a few instances for the benefit of comparatively new-comers. The Presbyterian Manse at Taradale had five feet of mud in it. The properties of Messrs S. G, Brandon and A'. Brown wore covered with silt to the depth of four or five feet. The depth of silt was easily ganged, for the posts of the wire fences of the paddocks were four feet six inches above ground—in some oases the tops of these just showed above the silt; in others they were completely buried. Now, it does seem a difficult task to value Hnd for either purposes of sale or taxation while it is subject at any moment to the total or partial destruction of the surface improvements, as well as to the loss of the stock. There is little danger of the total loss of land, as the general effect of the floods has been to raise the land and generally to improve it by a richly fertile deposit. If a plan of insuring against the loss of the surface improvements and stock by floods could be arranged, it would place the value of this land on a much more definite footing, and I noedly hardly say would place the occupiers above the need of aid from the charitable in their time of trouble. It does nob seem that the risk is more than is generally taken by insurers, and the present is a good time to judge of the actual loss by inspection ot the ground. I will not attempt to go into details here, but it does seem that it is so much of a national calamity that some hundred thousand acres of the most fertile land in the world and otherwise so suited for close settlement should be at such a disadvantage, that it is fairly a matter for the Government to deal with in the way of some form of insurance. I have little faith in protective works being any security in the near future. It is both a large and a difficult matter, and, without any discredit to our own engineers, I think worse might bo done than to get the opinion of a Belgian or Dutch water engineer given on the scone of disaster. This sort of engineering is a speciality of those countries, where I have lived for years in places whore the breaking of a bank would have inundated the country to a depth of some 12£b. Even the engineers of those countries might find a difficulty in dealing with ©ur mountain torrents.—l am, &0., G. D. Hamilton,