The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1907. A SENSIBLE MOVE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIC, Issue 13459, 4 December 1907, Page 4

The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1907. A SENSIBLE MOVE.

The Greymouth Harbour Board ycsle.iday decided upon a course id' action tho result, of which will no doubl. be. watched with considornhk* iuU'itsti liy similar bodies c.oiKemplating the acquirement of an expensive dredging plant. The West Coast Board, in pursuance ..1' a comprehei;oive scheme of harb«.-ur improvement, propo,<>s to purohi.t;e a bucket du-dge, of a design somewhat similar to that of the. machine now at work in our own harbour, but, with a tarrying capacity of rather lew than half that of the. Timarn dredge. 'J lie cost is io lie somewhere about, i) 31.000, which is si little more than the builders' contract, price for (lie Timaru Boaid's bucket dredge. But tho SouJJi Canterbury taxpayvr hao found to his cost 'that the Iruihten;' price is not necessarily the last word in the capital outlay upon a machine of .thin description. The Timaru dredge has not long returned fiom Porti Chalmers-, where a number of alterations were carried out, the cost of -which tho dreidgemasler, at the lust meeting of the Board,' suggested should not. be charged to repair*—in other wordrs, we presume, they.'ought to be nddr-d on to the cost piles of the vessel. Anyone who has followed tho reports on the dredge which have been submitted by tho new master and by the Board's subcommittee who inspected her under, h.is; guidance, will remember .that a considerable' expenditure was authorised to remedy defects—to be safe we wiil iwiy alleged defects—of construction! Perhaps the builders, and the engineers who supervised the construction in the Board's interests, will have something more, to say when these damaging reports reach them, so that it is just advisable for r.o to be on tho safe side. As a matter of fact neither we. nor ihe public know how much the rectification of these alleged defects (still to hi safe) has cost, for at the last meeting of the Board, when the return of the renovated dredge was reported, nothing was said about, the actual amount that had been spent upon her at Port Chalmois, nor indeed ( were wo-told what had been done to the,boatSome of, the items which 'were sanctioned before she left Timaru we're afterwards .struck out as. temporarily unnecessary, so that b?yond the original report arid estimate of the sub-committee, which was amended subsequently, the. public have no idea what"-has been the secondary bill for the construction of tho, dredge. We aie inclined to suspect that this unsatisfactory experience in Timaru has had' something to do with the Greymouth Board's decision to eend Home their own', supervising engineer. \ The telegram announcing this'decision-te discreetly vague, but at least it is possible that Greymouth haft drawn a moral from Timaru. Wo must say that it appeals to us as a senGible tiling for a ; Boatd whieli is spending £130,000 on a diedge, to engage a >superylijjijg "engineer in whom it. can repose the most implicit reliance ' It is the practice of the Union Steam Ship Company -tu have the building of additions to their fleet, supervised by members of their own deck and engine-room fit aft', and that Keems a. wise precedent to follow. At the same time, rite action ; nf the Greynibuth Board and the express reason assigned for taking it, must draw etome sort of hotice from engineering linns wjio have* in the , past, been entrusted with the supervision of dredges built for New Zealand Boards. Especially is this the case -Willi. the 'firm engaged by thti Timaru' Boarrd. The way in which they carried out their duties liars'been called in question, and in selfvindication both they and the builders ought, to have some reply to make to the criticisms of the dredgemaster and' of the quartette of noii-experts -who passed judgment, on her buckets and winches and 1 copper pipes and so forth. If they allow judgment to go by default, it will be interesting to watch whether llie Greymouth people have any .-better luck with the construction ■of a dredge supervised during the building, -by an engineer • sent Home for the purpose.