The Western Star. (PUBLISHED WEEKLY.) SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1876.

Western Star, Issue 143, 3 June 1876, Page 4

The Western Star. (PUBLISHED WEEKLY.) SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1876.

Mb, Macanbbew lias not shewn his usual sagacity in letting “ sleeping dogs lie.” He has championed Provincial Engineering talent to Sir Julius, who might not know better, in a document unfortunately open to the scrutiny of the Western District, where the inhabitants are not blind. We are not Engineers hny more than the townspeople of Invercargill; but a few years back when a goods shed had been engineered up, it required no speciality for them to see it blown down, and not more difficult is it now to perceive various glaring absurdities affecting the Western Railway works. The bridge, if in its right place, would have been built with a saving of six or seven rows of piles, and the railway would not have had to turn sharp round a corner to descend upon it. We use the word “ descend” advisedly, as the difference in the level between the railway and the bridge built for it, is only a drop of about one in fifty, which, taken in conjunction with the short turn, must, of course, be extra-ordinari!} 1, safe and efficient? The line of railway through the town has injured as many sections and run into as great an amount of cutting and embankment as it could well be made to do, when, if taken through Havelockstreeb or the Maori Reserve, an enormous expense would have bean saved and an extent of flat country drained. Large timber openings are placed where pipes Wbuld answer; culverts in wrong places; no wing walls to timber openings in embankments ; and the high land bridge, if constructed according to original plans, would have been a monument of engineering ingenuity, and nothing else.; as it would have been standing in the middle of the cutting, and some feet short of contact with either side. We can’t take the levels to prove that the original plans would have turned the river into the railway, and that the proportions of the -upper bridge would enable it to return the compliment by throwing the railway into tue river, but the absurdities that we can see have had a tendency to induce belief in part of . what we hear. The

public have already prayed for investigation into the contract and specifications, and Mr Macandrew’s gallant flourish on behalf of Provincial Engineering is not likely to be accepted as a satisfactory substitute. Somebody is responsible for the blunders, and that somebody mast be exposed, if only in justice to the innocent. It is only fair to the present Chief Engineer, Mr Arthur, for us to addon? belief that ho was not occupying his present position when the Western contract was signed, and caunct be considered responsible for its faults. Mr Betvs also having had an apparently impracticable duty to perform in trying to reconcile the word to the deed, has never suffered in the estimation of the neighbourhood for absurdities that he had no part in creating.

Mr Macandrew may be right in upholding Provincial engineering ability; but if so, he has displayed a want of acumen in not having the right men in the right places. The last, and a very fatal error made by the Superintendent has been in trying a “fail” with the Premier. We have only to draw our readers’ attention te the last letter from Sir Julius Vogel to Mr Macandrew to show that the unhappy recipient, in seeking his match has met with his master.