WAIKATO-WAIUKU CANAL SCHEME

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17804, 31 August 1929, Page 9

WAIKATO-WAIUKU CANAL SCHEME

(To the Editor.) i Sir, —For many years I have taken an interest in the proposed WaikatoWaiuku canal. Knowing most of the territory that would be affected, I feel confident that, subject to the various engineering and economic data being favourable, the canal, in conjunction with the general improvement of the navigability of the Waikato River, would prove a good provincial investment. It would also, of course, have national value from the economic and military, points of view. Those who wish the scheme well, however, require to be very open-eyed, otherwise they may easily be side-tracked, for whenever there is any mention of the proposed Waiuku canal, however indirect the allusion, opposition to the very idea is quickly expressed in some quarters, so quickly, in Tact, as to suggest to the detached mind that the opponents of that scheme greatly fear its emergence from the realm of possibilities to that of probabilities. Most adroitly it is attempted to side-track the canal question by allusion to the keen competition now existing between railway and road traffic throughout the territory traversed by the line and by the navigable portion of the Waikato River, the inference being that there is no room for a third mode of transport in Ihe same area. By some oversight the opposition has omitted to point out the undesirability of encouraging aviation for similar reasons. Admittedly, though there are no insuperable engineering difficulties in the way? there is room for two opinions in regard to the economic feasibility of the canal, but that is no reason why it should not be regarded as a proposition to be decided upon its merits, instead of being weighed on the negative side by arguments that are not entitled to much respect. For decades it has been apparent to those interested in these problems that the fear of losing freights on the railway has been a potent factor in delaying ade- i quatc dealing with the problem of securing and maintaining the full navigability of the Waikato River. But what has been gained? The railwayrevenue has not been conserved, for road transport has developed and is always encroaching still further upon

railway preserves. The river traffic might just as well have been encouraged—it might have resulted in a little less wear and tear on the roads. Looked at from national and economic poinis of view, our transport problems resolve themselves into this: We must develop whatever forms offer the cheapest and most convenient means i of carriage in the various localities, i We are developing hydro-electricity, 1 with no regard to the effect upon coal mines, and rightly so, even though some mines are nationally owned. Likewise, if this Dominion is to prosper as it should do, we must ever seek the best and most economical methods of transport, even at the risk of having to curtail other forms. Happily, in regard to our inland waterways, it is in the highest degree probable that each kind of transport will to some 1 extent support and supplement the other, and the limit of production from the soil in the Waikato is not yet'ln: sight. v : However, we are promised further; investigation into this and allied prob- i lems, but in the meantime it is unfor- ; tunate that interested opposition should be already endeavouring to bias the minds of investigators in advance. An open mind should be the present attitude, and the case should be judged on its merits when those merits are ascertained, and viewed also with a , little of that constructive imagination without which no great task would ever have been undertaken.—l am, etc., NAUTILUS.