DAMAGE BY THE FLOODS.

Otago Witness, Issue 851, 21 March 1868, Page 1

DAMAGE BY THE FLOODS.

(From the Dailt Tikes, March. 17.) The labors of the Committee, appointed to receive and investigate claims for assistance by sufferers from the Floods, have been brought to a conclusion. Their duties have not been very onerous, but the Committee are not on that account less entitled to thanks than they would have been had they been arduous and heavy. It must be exceedingly gratifying to everyone who was prepared to contribute to the assistance of his fellow-Colonists, that so little need has been felt for the help so generously proffered. But it would be an error to conclude that because help has not been asked there has been no loss. Many have suifered heavily. Some have lost stock, some crops, some land, some goods, some houses ; but all have borne their losses with fortitude, and in. spite of these reverses, they have retained both hearb and hope. If they have to begin the world ai?ain, they do so with full confidence that the same energy and determination that ena v led them to gather together that which has gone, will help them to retrieve their losses. Misfortunes met in snuh a spirit lose half their weight; but they serve to show the characters of those who can thus endure and suffer. If it was honorable to the heads and hearts of those who so promptly met in Dunedin to consider how misfortunes could be alleviated, it is equally honorable to those on whom they fell to decline the aid so liberally tendered. Perhaps nothing that has occurred in the history of tho Province, has tended to show so prominently, how intimate is the sympathy between the inhabitants of the town and country. It proves, on both sides, that their interests are felt to c mutual, and it should serve to strengthen the kindly feeling thnt binds the people of the Province to one another. But while it is matter for rejoicing that the loss to individuals has been partial, and not so severe as was at first anticipated', I there can be no question as to the destruc-

tion of , ; many expensive and useful public works. Those who have travelled in the direction that the floods took, /cannot but be amazed .at the damage' that was done in a few hours. Roads that, before the water came down, seemed firm, and likely, with common repairs, to last for years, were broken up ; torrents rushed ftcross them, and left chasms iv them, that rendered ■ them altogether impassable. Bridges spanning insignificant streams, that seemed never likely to be shaken by any quantity of water that might come down, were swept away. Ford 3 that had been passable for years, and appeared so permanent as to induce the building of hotels near them, were destroyed. Even the courses of some rivers were changed, and new channels formed. To add to this list of public loss and inconvenience, the expensive bridges at Waikouaiti and the West Taieri suffered — the one being swept away, and the other so injured as to require heavy outlay before it can be again safe for traffic. No doubt the first care of the Provincial Council will be to appropriate funds for the repair of these serious damages? But this is not all that the inhabitants of the Province will expect at their hands. "When any heavy calamity occurs through physical agency, and it is proposed to repair the resulting injury, ifc i 3 not always wise to fall into the old track. For instance, to build a bridge where the ; old one stood, or to adopt the plan on which it wasconstructed, without inquiry as to the causes that led to its destruction, might be to prepare another victim for some succeeding flood. So with a road. We are led to these remarks from some inquiry into the ■causes of the disasters. There is, in the Colonies, too much tendency to overlook contingencies. There cannot be a doubt that a careful examination of the valley through which every river flows, w,ould show that at some n^t very distant period there had been floods equally high with any that have fallen under human observation. And if this is the case, as like causes produce like effects', there is every reason ,to anticipate that, in the course of years, if the physical circumstances remain unchanged, floods equally high will again occur. It becomes, therefore, the barest prudence to construct a bridge in such a manner, and in such a position, as to give the freest possible egress for all the water that is likely to flow down the river, that in the shortest possible time it may find its way to the sea. JSTow this has not been attended to. Piles or piers have been placed in streams so as to intercept floating wreck, or in such positions that when the water rose they divertod the current, wluch washed away the approaches to the bridges. Turning from bridges to roads, it is notorious that some of these have been constructed on terraces, which, self-evidently, became part of the beds of the rivers, when the water rose pven moderately, and whenever covered with water, the roads necessarily suffered injury. No doubt many . of these arrangements were made through motives of economy, or because the traffic in the first instance took those directions ; but, to use a phrase common in medical science, it must be plain that the damage arose through " preventible "causes;" and, as the Province has to pay for it, the inha itants * ill expect that a recurrence of it will be guarded against. These are some of the plain lessons to be derived from the losses tbe Province has sustained. Physical laws have been disregarded, and the punishment inevitable xipon their being broken has necessarily followed.