THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1902. THE TRAMWAYS POWER QUESTION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12483, 14 October 1902, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1902. THE TRAMWAYS POWER QUESTION.

The business to , be transacted at the meeting of the City Council to-morrow night will, it may be conjectured, be distinctly interesting. The effect which the Arbitration. Court's award, that came into force yesterday, may have upon the future working of the municipal tramways will have to be discussed, and the Council will require to decide which of the concessions that are now enjoyed by travellers shall be abandoned in order that the service may not involve the ratepayers in loss during the period that must elapse before the haulage system is converted. The power question will also come once more under consideration. It will be introduced in at least two aspects. The recommendation of the Tramways Committee for the appointment of an expert or experts who shall report upon the power trunsmisr £»ion proposals that have been before the Council, will biing the subject up in one form, -and Councillor Gore's proposal to invite tenders for the supply of steel pipes for the conveyance of water from a weir on the Lee Stream to the penstock or the power house, as may be determined, represents another form in which the matter will engage attention. If the Tramways Committee's recommendation as to the course which the Council should now adopt in relation to the reports it has received from the-city engineer and Mr Noble Awiersoa is

approved—and we believe it "will be found that it contemplates the appointment of both an engineer and a man of practical experience in racecutting to advise the Corporation iri tho mattei* —it may be thought prudent to defer the consideration of Councillor Gore's motion until a report shall have been received from the persons whose views, it is understood, the Commibee is desirous of obtaining. The adoption of a pipe-line scheme, as proposed by Councillor Gore, would involve the abandonment of essential features in the scheme propounded by the city engineer and also in the scheme outlined by Mr Anderson., Mr Kogers and Mr Anderson both favour a waiter-race scheme. On the other hand, the Council has not yet had any professional declaration in support of a pipe-line project. It has been guided in the past by engineering advice, Ib can hardly be expected now that it will fly right in the face of engineering advice, even although, as Councillor Lawrence- complained in the letter from him which we published yesterday, the net result of the dependence it has hitherto placed upon professional skill in tho matter of power for the tramways has been somewhat unsatisfactory. And if it decides to take an independent opinion upon the reports of Mr Rogers and Mr Anderson, it supplies itself with an excellent reason why it should not at once discard the water-race plan and resolve instead to bring the water froa the source of supply in steed pipes. The delays that have so far occurred over the adoption of a power transmission scheme have, Councillor Lawrence argues quite reasonably, not been disadvantageous. Ratepayers are always prone to liberally exercise a> privilege which British people claim as almost exclusively their own—the privilege of grumbling; but they are ' certainly sensible' of the necessity, in their own interests, of avoiding, as far as possible, a false step in a business where a mistake, if made, may prove exceedingly costly to them. And the further delay that will be necessitated through the reference of the reports of Messrs Rogers and Anderson, to the authorities whose appointment the Tramways Committee will recommend, will be of very small consequence. It may be that the result of this appeal to an independent and practical tribunal may be a recommendation in favour of the adoption of a pipe-line project. In that event the Council may be convinced that in the proposal wMch Councillor Gore has for some weeks been , advocating the true solution of its difficulties rests. Practical men, we are aware, have expressed themselves strongly in favour of some such scheme. And the arguments which are employed by some of them who have made themselves acquainted with the country that would be traversed bv the proposed water races are not liglitly to be disposed of.' The race which Mr Rogers proposed would, it is asserted by them, be exposed to the danger of interruption, throughout its entire length. The nature of the country, they say, is such that there would be a constant erosion at the toes of tlie cuttings and constant supping of the sides of the race, with a liability to a breakaway. The absence of clay, it is alleged, would render the "tamping" of the race a sheer impossibility. Heavy stress is laid, too, on the loss of water through percolation in a country that consists of loose rubble. To the race that has been , suggested' by Mr Anderson it is objected that the country it would traverse- omits the various creeks that are potent contributors to the Lee Stream supply and that its value is fatally discounted on that account. TBese are arguments which, it must be acknowledged, are not to be ignored or contemptuously dismissed. If they are sound, indeed, they oppose insurmountable objections to each of the water-race proposals the Council has had submitted to it. And it would be unsafe to assume that they are not, sound. The Council must be .definitely satisfied one way or the other before it either accepts or rejects Councillor Gore's proposal. The waiting policy, distasteful though it may be to a greaifc number of citizens, must again be that which will commend, itself to the judgment of sensible people. It is always better to be safe than sorry. In the end it may preserve the city from the loss of many thousands of pounds, for, if it be the case that neither of the water-race schemes that have been placed before the public could be depended upon to lay down uninterruptedly ait the' power house a sufficient supply of water to satisfy at all times all demands for electric energy, while reliance could be placed upon a- pipe-line project, the latter would also have other advantages in. its favour. The construction of a pipe line would cost less both in time and in money than the construction of a water race, and, when it was constructed, the cost of supervision would be less than in the case of an open race. Upon these grounds, therefore, it is desirable that, while the Council should not too hastily adopt Councillor Gore's proposition, it should not reject it. without due inquiry. The Tramways Committee has, throughout the course of its investigations in connection with! the water power question, exhibited a commendable cautiousness, and we believe, despite the carping criticism that provoked Councillor Lawrence to address to us the communication in yesterday's issue, that most citizens will hold that in acting as it has done the Committee has been quite justified. A little more of that oualit" of cautiousness on the Council's part at the present juncture would appear to be desirable.