THE NORTHERN OUTFALL.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 15159, 1 October 1913, Page 6

THE NORTHERN OUTFALL.

High, hopes Have been disappointed by the day labour system in connection with the northern sewerage outfall. Tlie work was begun nearly, thirteen months ago, and it is not yet quite completed. Councillors who decided on Monday night to have the slight remainder of the work despatched by contract were more sure of the delay than of its causes. The engineer, Mr' Logan, states that it would have been finished weeks ago if there had not been a shortage of labour at one period, and if the Council had not rejected his advice on more than one occasion. He presents also fairly impressive reasons why the work has cost a good deal iriore than the estimate. Cast iron pipes ordered by a previous engineer were only half as thick and' strong as those prescribed, and had to be reinforced at great expense with concrete. ' The estimate, moreover, made ho allowance for an engineer's salary, and an engineer's salary for thirteen months is an appreciable item. The work h,as been well done, on the authority of. Mr Cuthbert's report, though Mr Cuthbert seems to have earned £SO for the report without much labour. To appoint an engineer and then engage another to import upon his work becomes a costly process. An unseemly wrangle, with possibly another, engineer's inquiry, seemed to be threatened by the discussion .on the work on Monday night,. , but Mr Logan's action in tendering his resignation caused it to be closed with dignity. Remembering the proceedings in the last one, no one . wants another engineer's inquiry. Nor can we regard it a-s a serious defect of the outfall work that it will not allow of a diversion of the sewerage into the septic tank if anything should go wrong with the; outfall. Sewage from a/large part of the new area emerges too far north to be taken to the septic tank in any case, unless it was to run up hill, and, the tank, which has always been suspected and disliked as such, will be far more popular as a fernery—the metanaorphosis which Bay improvers have proposed for it.

If'the Tyrone can be refloated,', ! as now seems possible, 1913 will have less claim to be considered las a black year for' shippingdisasters in New Zealand. It was in June of last year that the Star: of Canada, belonging to the Tyser Company, went ashore at Gis"borne and became a total loss, .but. the Tyrone is the third steamer to be wrecked this year. The Tyser Company's Indyabarah, which went ashore near Wanganui in May last, was refloated: after suffering damage. The Federal-Houlder-Shire Company were less fortunate when their liner, the Devon, struck , the rocks on Pencarrow , Head a month ago. She soon became , a hopeless wreck. The Devon and the Tyrone both went ashore in fogs. Not one of these four wrecks, fortunately, was attended with any loss of life. ~

Much blood-letting 1 in tlie i Balkans does not seem to-have reduced the temperature of that excitable region. The Bulgarians, having been foiled in their attack on .Greece and Servia, their former allies, seem to have encouraged an attack which the Albanians are now making -upon Servia and Montenegro. The Albanians fought on both sides at the beginning of the war between the Allied States and key. Previously they supplied the mosil trusted mercenaries oi the Turk. "With* 60,000 Servians and 50,000 Albanians, apart from Montenegrins, engaged in it, it is evident that the present" war—the third that has been raging m the Balkans in twelve monthsis not a small one. 'The latest news is that the Albanians' have been defeated, but,there seems to be mere, .chaspe of the war spread- ;

ing than of,its ending soon. No! ► , one. ot these sanguinary. Powers could evoke moral sympathy 1 tvom the outer yorld to-day uv ■ against the others. The ' bai- ' barilies which they imputed-.to the lurk have been imputed since - V to all of them Europe, it h',xs been .said, looks on impotent'to, check bloodshed and horrors the" like of which has never been wit- ' nessed since the great Fren*ti Revolution."