AMATEUR ENGINEERING IN AUCKLAND.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3321, 17 October 1871, Page 2

AMATEUR ENGINEERING IN AUCKLAND.

TO THE EDITOE OF THE INDEPENDENT.

Sir, — Mr Q-illies was very indignant in the House of Assembly on the 4bh insfc, because the General Government had taken upon themselves to say in what manner the £25,000 they propose to adranoe to this province Bhould be expended; Ho seems to think that all the money spent within the province should puss through his hands, but surely the aotion taken by Mr Gillies — who professes to be somewhat of an amateur engineer himself — in the matter of the Kaipara Railway, does not call for any enlargaraent of the powers now in his hands, when we look back at the action he took in the matter of the Riverhead terminus of this very railway, and know that every tender sent in for the work shewed that the line to Harkins' Point was the cheapest. Itbohoveß the G-eneral Government as the representatives of the public, in a higher branch of the Legislature to see that the publio money is not frittered away by an experimenting amateur engineer : as the country will find to their coat has been done if this Kaipara Railway is allowed to go on and be completed on a throe feet gauge (that being the gauge decided on by our own provincial amateurs) whilst the Waikato and other railways in the colony are to be three feet six inches gauge. If the Kaipara line is continued into Auckland, as is now proposed, no connection can be made with the Waikato line and all goods and passengers must bo transferred from one line to the other, whilst separate engines and carriages must be used for both lines and all this to suit the whim or caprioa

(or it may be owing to the superior engineering skill) of Mr Gillies. Be that as it may the Government are using a very wise discretion in preventing this thirst for engineering experience (being obtained by superintendents at the public expense j especially as tbey have just imported a gentleman of the profession from England, whose duty it will be to see to the proper expenditure of the public money on all public works j and it would be Tery inconvenient for him to be dictated to by each or any of the superintendents of the different provinces, who might imagine that they were gifted with a superior knowledge of engineering, or who might have satellites, who advised them and styled themselves— consulting engineers, and who would be continually annoying him like so many mosquitoes. — Yours &c, Auckland, Oot. 12. K.