Page:Ashburton•Scotter•1972.pdf/103

petition was presented to Parliament, representing probably a last flicker of road board resentment at having to surrender any rating powers. Consequently, the clause giving the council the power to rate and raise loans was struck from the initial bill and another had to be passed.^[1]

On his side, Baxter could not be accused of lack of speed. He reported on the scheme two months after his appointment. He fixed on Pudding Hill Stream as the site for the first intake; but in spite of the success of open channels he recommended the use of glazed earthenware pipes six inches in diameter, with 5090 gallon tanks at intervals. Another meeting at Rakaia objected and asked for something less elaborate. Baxter proposed a reduction in the size of the pipes which would lower the cost to £64,000. He was not alone. E. G. Wright, railway engineer and county councillor, was also unconvinced by Cameron’s success and William White wanted iron pipes clearly envisaging a high-pressure system. Moreover, the Rakaia ratepayers were of two minds, many of them expecting a supply large enough to draw off for use all over the farm. In the face of these obstructions, two actions served to clear the way. Cameron took the council members to Springfield to inspect his works, and the council’s consulting engineers, Thornton and Bull of Christchurch, came out strongly in favour of open races.

In April 1880, James Wilkie secured the contract for constructing the dam and weir at the intake on Pudding Hill Stream, six miles north-west of Methven. In spite of frosts and floods and a shortage of concrete, just when the weather cleared and made progress possible, he had the headworks ready by November.^[2]

The ‘inauguration ceremony’ for the county stock water system took place on 31 January 1881. County councillors, Hugo Friedlander as mayor, and others, altogether seventy-five men, travelled by train to Methven and by waggonette to the site. Walker, the county chairman, turned the screw to open the sluice and allow water to run into a concrete channel. A champagne luncheon followed.

From the mile-long concrete channel, the water flowed by way of ‘Chapman’s Creek’ to Methven. There it entered the race which extended for thirty-two miles as far as Dundas farm, Seafield, and it reached this point forty-eight hours later. The apparently small loss from percolation which the rapid advance indicated was one surprising feature of this experimental scheme. Even more import-