The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1884.

Timaru Herald, Volume XL, Issue 8939, 23 February 1884, Page 2

The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1884.

NorwiTHST.kKDiNG Mr Gladstone's disbelief, 'tbe nowßoi 1 Gordon Pasha having restored the slaves trade m the Soudan is now fnlly confirmed, and tbe British Government, will tave to pwt the best face :bey <iin on the action ol: their plenipotentiary. The tclegramo state that pnbli<3 opinion m Englnnd ia severely exercised over the matter; That is only what might ba-re been expected. Fortunately, for the success of Gordon Pasha's plans, bo is beyond the reach of the wayward influence of the caprices of British public opinion. Th.a'newspapers, we; learn, • condemn him very severely. One of the few charms of the Sondau — from the political point of view — is that there are no newspapers there. Education is m n most pleasing etite of backwardness. Very few of tho people can read ; a- defect ( which saves them a great deal of mental l'abo:.* and tends materially to (amplify the proceiis of Government. Gordon Paslia is not likely to be affected much by anything the English -newspapers may publish regarding him. ' But, we are informed, the Standard kieiuta that the British Cabinet; must at once dieown Gordon Pasha's action ; and when the Standard " insists," things an; getting Berions. If public feeling should ruu so high on the subject that thu Cabinet cannot conveniently resist it, then, of course, they will disown Goi-don Pasha's action. The trifling circumstance of the Cabinet having entrusted, him with full, power ■ to 'act on hin own judgment m all! things, arid oi? his having tmclertak en a tbanklef.B and fearfully perilous missio:i on Ihe express understanding that he would) be supported m whatever he might sen fit to do, will not make any < difference 1 . I(; is not the first time thai, tho Gladstone Ministry have turned thoir bs/jk on officers who sacrificeci everything m their service. Jitter the TranßvaeJ. business, nothing 'thoy coulcl do, m thtyt way need cause any surprise. Their fundamental principh3 is that everything must give way to party etfrergeniiy ; and that being clearly underatood, many things become plain which vfould otherwise appear inexpt.cable. Here again, however, Gordon Pasha m m luok. He ia virtually master of the situation. It really makes very little difference to him, we imagino, wliether the British Cabinet disown his action or not. He is Governor-General of the Soudan, with absolute authority m that tetpacity, and is supported, with 8. warmth approaching adoration, by tbe people. It is quite out of the question foi' a parcel of trembling olerks iv London to pretend to dictare instructions to him. He may be di - -• o-raied, but he most certainly cannot be J displaced, except to make room for the triumphant Mahdi. Gordon Pasha cun well afc'ord, we fancy, to snap his ' fingers at Mr Gladstone, tho Cabinet, 3 and th/ 3 British public j— and what its . more, he is just the man to do it. 0. ■ : The Nmo Zr.aland Times of Wednesday " lust stotea that m a despatch recently • received by the Government from the , Agent- General, Sir Francis Dillon BdLt - points out hi his usual clear land incisive lingua;»e one grand cause why farmers j possessed of capital m fcbe Home i Country, decline to come out to thin J colony to settle. He writes: — "It i 8 the instability of the land law that ib the real mischief ; and after a year's ! experience and close application, I do 1 not hQHttato to, say that if thore is one thing more than another that detoi's , people of the farmer class here from J Jjoing out, it is that no qne can feel iiure of the- land law renuvining for t;wo ;jessions the same, nor can iin iutending colonist rely upon J being able- to make un investmiinl ■ which .would not be immiKliately af- • i'ected by some change. „ "We complain m the colony thht one of : iihe clauses we should most like to me 1 inaking it their homes — -namely, hill ; Garment with small capital — are not induced to come out to us ; but we take oare to let them know that, if thoy do come out, they shall have no security of ■tenure; whatever m the pursuit we invito them to engage. in. In the case of leases for subdivided runs, whenever I have had to explain that a hill farmer who should go out with tho intention of bidding for one at the ' Government auction, and laying out his capital m pastor*! pursuits, is liable to be tuniocl out without; compensation any day ab twelve months' notice, I have invariably found this provision to act as an absolute doterrent." Our contemporary then :proceeila m a lengthy and very earnest article to dwell on tho evilH which Sir Dillon Bell complains of, and particularly, |;o deprecate the aonedem cry against th,e runholdera whioli has produced the most extraordinai'y anomalies m ou? land la we, deterred the mofit desirable class of settlers, and infinitely, depreciated the public estate. ' ' , W&, willingly republish the passage which ■ tho New Zoaland Times quotc|3 from Hit Dillon Bell's deapntoh, because, m puc opinion, the ,A.geat-Genqral'fi views ihghfc to be made knovvn as widely as poisible. But we should scarcely have impposed. that that ptisaago had been extracted from a rodent despatcli, .ilwe.liad not seen it so eta.ted ia tbo New fyaland Times. Tha,t paper being jpublisijed nt ,tho seat of Government', i»nd having ready accesa to tho vory nonrca of ofneial information, ahotdd, of cou.fse f bo : almost infaljihlo m suoh ihittteni. Hut ' for this! , «uwid,eration, '

tre should have been tlispns^ to v.th|pil|- St mv contemporary had fallen irifcoH ii lii (nietaUpi and<.,got hoiS of .a Btray le^f w cj-oni aoine old Blue book. {We well re- yi iaaiboi" publishing. v «sopious : extracts '«] Eroni r despatch of Sir Dillon Bell's on ,d the Now Zealand land laws, at least a n year ago, which despatch, by-the-byi^V c 1 was not a particularly recent one then ; v and among those extracts, unless our a memory has gone all adrift, there 00- 1 curreel verbatim ct literatim the passage v quoted on Wednesday last by the New Zealand Times as from " a despatch ii?cently received by tbe Government from tbe Agent-General." But fov all tha.t, we will not dispute our contemporary's accuracy. We prefer to conclude that the Agent-General, attaching special importance to the question mised iv his remarks on the land laws, and finding that the Government have taken not the least notice of those remarks since he first made them, has thought it worth while to repeat them m a recent despatch. While he was about it, however, he might have made them more forcible by a very slight correction, without altering their tenor at all. In the early part of them, he writes : — " After a year's experience and close application, I do not hesitate to say that if there is one thing more than another that deters people of the farmer class here from going out, it is that no one can feel sure of tbe land law; remaining for two aeasiona the same." This was as much as Sir Dillon" Bell could say when he saat the first edition of his despatch on the land laws. But he has now had much more than " a year's experience iind close observation ; " and it would, greatly have added to the interest of his remarks and to the, effect of his protest, if he had made it clear that a prolonged experience had not altered his views. It may be said, perhaps, that it does not matter whether Sir Dillon Bell sent the despatch m question a month ago, or two years ago ; because the lesson it seeks to inculcate is as necessary now OB it was then, and was as necessary then as it is now. The great thing is to obtain publicity for his statements, m order that public opinion m the colony may be brought to bear on the Government and tho Legislature, with a view to securing greater stability m the land laws for the future, t That ia all quite true ; but the reason why we have dwelt rather particularly on , the question of whether or not this , remonstrance of the Agent-General is of recent date is this. We maintain (hfit the Government received this identical despatch, or one so like it that there is practically no difference between them, two years ago. During that time they huve done nothing to remove " the grand cause why farmers possessed of capital m the Home country, decline to come out to this colony to settle." On' the contrary, they have devoted themselves session after session to tho introduction of all sorts of novel and fantastic changes m the land laws ; and the Minister of Lands especially has staked his reputation on a scheme of land legislation which is more calculated than any other to repel capital and settlement. We can imagine the wry face an English farmer with a few thousand pounds and a desire to emigrate to New Zealand would make, on being informed by tho AgentGeneral that he could get a " perpetual lease" of a small patch of agricultural land, subject to a revision of tbe rent, or to eviction with, a valuation for improvements, every twenty one years ; but that under no circumstances, nor at any time, could he convert his lease into a freehold. In short, inntead of profiting by the warning conveyed m such " clear and concise language " by the Agent-General, the Government have proceeded as if possessed by a determination to aggravate to the utmost the evilfi which he points out, and to ine.ke his task as difficult as possible. What is still more remarkable, the New Zealand Times, the very paper which now reprints Sir Dillon Bell's strictures with such solemn unction, and expresses such emphatic approval of them, has been a blind supporter of the Ministry alLthe while. It is rather late m the day for our contemporary to preach against the instability of tho land laws, or to deprecate the tendency of the authorities towards capricious and minchievous legislation. ■ „ + The majority of our readers, we feel Bure, take a good deal of interest m the projected harbor works at Napier, firstly because the construction of harbor works there has been thought difficult or impossible for the same reason that delayed 30 long the commencement of works at Timaru,— the existence of a travelling shingle beach, — and secondly becauso the Napier Harbor Board have adopted a scheme for a harbor designed by Mr John Qoodall, who so boldly faced and has so successfully overcome the shingle difficulty at Timarn. We have, therefore, much pleasure m publishing a resume of Mr <3oodaU's report and a description, of his plans. Ab present the Port of Napier is situated just within the entrance of Ahuriri lake — a tidal reservoir having an area of 9300 acres. This is filled and discharged at each tide, the volume of water flowing m and out sufficing to maintain an open channel. The channel is, however, obstructed for the passage of large vessels by a bar of the material travelling along the beach, — shingle which comes from some distance to the southward,—^nd limestone boulders disintegrated from cliffs m the immediate neighborhood. An attempt has been made t(i improve the entrance by building training walls at tho mouth of the lagoon m the hope that these would increaso the' acour sufficiently to clear away tho bar. These works have not been attended with the desired euocess, arid the bar is now usually' more obstructed than before, yesselg can only go mor out at high water, and large; ones cannot enter at all but have to lial out m the roadstead and be tendered by lighters. The bulk of Mr Goodall's report is taken up -with a discussion of tho 3hingle difficulty, because this was the ?reat obstacle to bo overcome. So at lenat iill tho engineers who had eximinod and reported upon the place previously had asserted, but Mr Goodp ill shows by very clear reasoning, as' hp las practically demonstrated here, that he ijhiuglu presents' no difficulties at ill. Ho doaln at some length vith the source of . tuo shingle Irjft which pusses Nupiar, . und

BXJtyjss?6syit may seem, it appears to s< bWe been jjetf t for him to show that the b residents m the neighborhood have been, a very indifferent observers, .and, have n feijtSrely • tdistaken the source of the, s drift. The opinion has been> : gene* o rally -accepted that the shingle all o came '"down the Tuki-tuki river, a 4sb- 1 very large stream, which enters the sea ;■» about eight miles south of Napier. The. l Tuki-tuki flows through a district m I which immense quantities of shingle t exist, but the power of the river, and y not the abundance of supply, must de- r termine the quantity of -shingle tran- c ported to the sea. Mr Goodall, whilst I admitting that even a considerable \ uantity of shingle is . supplied by the 3 river, finds the principal source of 1 supply m a range of shingle and clay j cliffs between the Tuki-tuki and Cape c Kidnappers. These cliffs rise abruptly t from the shore to a hight of AQOip, and -\ extend to within a mile of. the Cape. ] Their base is washed by the sea at such t an angle that slips are rapidlyremoved, and the beach appears devoidof shingle.' This might deceive : a casual observer,, but the almost vertical, face . of the cliff, its - fresh ■'■ appearance and absence of vegetation, ' and 'the frequent occurrence of slips,' show that the cliff ig being steadily cut down and carried away. The shingle travels along the coaat as it does between the Waitaki and Timaru or along the Ninety-mile Beach, by the prevailing seas striking the beach, at an angle. It is driven obliquely up the beach and rolls down with the returning water at right angles to the coast, or slightly obliquely m the opposite direction, and this action being continued the shingle is carried along. The more oblique the waves . are to the beach, the quicker will the shingle travel, and vice versa. Waves at right angles' to the beach merely dash the shingle up and down and reduce it to sand. Mr Goodall followed the shingle stream northwards, and found that it terminated abruptly at "Wakaari Peninsula, about twelve miles north of Napier. There is no sign of any travelling shingle for many miles north of Wakaari, and he has no doubt the shingle does not pass this point. It was supposed that the quantity of shingle travelling past Napier was very. large, and the rapidity, with which it banked up behind an experimental groin 200 ft long, constructed at' the mouth of the harbor m 1875 — the shingle filling up the angle and passing round the work m six weeks— -was held to be conclusive proof of a very rapid" rate of travel indeed. Yet Mr Goodall found l ' at Wakaari a belt of shingle only four or five chains wide. On this he remarks ; "AB'the travel of shingle fljuslTiWaye been going on for countless ages, and has neither passed Wakaari nor accumulated to any great extent to the south of it, the quantity of shingle travelling along the coast must , be very small' in-, deed. It is worthy of remark that as you travel from. Napier to Wakaari the shingle becomes smaller and smaller; until at Wakaarr beach it scarciely averages the size of small beans, proving undoubtedly that as a beach comes more at right angles to the waves the shingle gets reduced,, fine Band being formed which .is carried out to sea by the motion of the waves. Such action would m some measure retard the accumulation of shingle, but could scarcely account for tlie narrow breadth of the spit, and nothing- short of a scant supply can explain it." In connection with- this subject we may mention that the . accumulation of shingle south of Banks' Peninsula, which arrests the' northward' travel of shingle along the Ninety mile Beach, iB upwards of two miles wide,' and the total area of the accumulation between Lake Ellesmere and the sea is from twenty -to twenty-five square miles, In this case, however, the numerous large rivers from the Bakaia to the Waitaki, I inclusive, have contributed to the supply. On the Ellesmere beach, too, the shingle is reduced to small gravel by continued grinding. Having shown by such reasoning as we have indicated that the shingle difficulty at Napier ; was not nearly so great as was believed, Mr Goodall quotes the observations and conclusions of Sir John Ooode and other engineers, stowing that the travel of ahingle at Timaiiu, was admitted to be greater than at Napier. The conclusion is 1 -obvious/ The travelling' shingle is being safely ignored, and a solid Breakwater is being successfully constructed at Timaru. The same may be done at Napier. It is needless to say that m designing harbor works for Napier, Mr Goodall has accepted that conclusion, , and planned a solid Breakwater. His plans show a' solid mole, commencing at the south aide of tbe , Bluff , : abo&t a mile and a half from' .the present.. harbor entrance, running out m a N.E. direction 141Of6; into 31ft of water; then, turning by a curve of 5 chains radio's to due north, and following this direction, 1060 ft, into 31ft of water, making a total length of 2470 ft, which can be extended m future if required. The first part of the mole will meet the S.E. seas at an angle of 120deg. ; the Timarn Breakwater meets them at an angle of about llOdeg. The depth of water obtained is very favorable (the. figures given refer' to low water- - ; of- spring tides), but the bottom is rather rough and tiyakji Lines ore drawn on the plan showing the direction c>f the S.E. waves aftoi* reflection* from ' th' e Breakwater, and . ; the action of these reflected waves m keeping baok the ahingle from the works at Timaru is explained m the report. This is a very important feature of the design, for it is of the very essence of Mr Goodall's calculations, that the "back-wash" will check the, shingledrift more effeotually than any' solid barrier would do. Roughly speaking, .the method of 'construction proposed for the mole resembles that followed m the 1 Timaru works, viz., a wall composed of three widths of concrete blooks, 12ft long, 6ft wide and 6ft deep, carried up froni the bottom to 2ft above low, water mark, capped with monolithic' Blocks each of the full width of the mole; and 20ft long, protected from scouv on the weather side by an apron ; oi ' large rubble block's.'' As soon as a depth of 20f : t or thereabouts at low wat^r has been reached, a modification .19 introduced ; the lower part of the wall is thenceforward composed of a rubble bed of suoh depth as may be required to bring ita surface to within 20ft beneath low water mark, and on this bed of rubble the conereto wall is carried. The plan differs from that of the Titnaru work m some details, the principal onej 1

so^ far aa *}SV ? aj»pjarßnice is concerned,' ' being a depression or shelf on che inneir "' as well as onp on tie outer Bide o£ the |" nic»hblith. : The latter is intended foistorage of blocks, the former for a line j U of- rail? for the conveyance of blocks or ! ci other materialto the end of tbe work. o1 The bluff; < close to -which - u he work *' will be placed, being composed of D limestone rock, rubble m ten-ton 2 blocks will be used for the wave- w breaker on the exposed side of the work. The advantage of baring this rock so handy is shown m the estimate of cost, 6(3,000 cubic yards of rubble being set down for foundations and wave-breaker, and about 80,300 cubic yards of concrete for the mole, — nearly half the wprk being of rubble. "We presume/ however, that v smaller quantity of ■ ■ concrete would replace the rubble. Plans are shown for a wharf 32ft ; 6in ■jvide, attached to the Breakwater as at Timaru, and carrying three lines of rails. The positions of three othar wharves, to be oonstraefced later, are indicated rtmnin/j from tbe onshore half of the mole parallel with the other half. As the stoppage of the i Bbingle by the Breakwater is likely to seriously affect the shingle beach at fepit Town, provision is made for protecting it by sheet piling, fer a length of 3760 feet. The total cost of the" works . proposed, viz. : — Breakwater, 2470 ft long; wharf, 1900 ft, long; sheet piling, 3760 ft; railway' connection with Spit Town, for conveyance of material, 115 chains; plus 15 per cent for engineering, superintendence, etc., is estimated at £197,131. As far as we can judge, a Very good harbor will be obtained by following Mr Goodall's phins, and the estimated cost is, not high, compared with the prodigious sums that are spent ow harbor works now-a-days. A. very great advantage of the plan is pointeS out m the this is that' when the Breakwater is well started there will he no trouble m keeping the bar at the mouth of the present harbor open, as there will be no shingle travelling across it, and if the limestone boulders are dredged up, a greater depth than the prenenfc may he maintained at little cost; '