PORT OF LYTTELTON.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20829, 12 April 1933, Page 17

PORT OF LYTTELTON.

Sir, —"Pioneer's Daughter" has hit the nail on the head: Christ- : church is an inland city and Port Lyttelton figures on a London merchant's sheets as a town of 15,000 souls —on a par with Timaru, Wanganui, or Oamaru. If Port Christchurch was started and only wanted when it was finished, what a golden asset it would : be. It is wanted in no uncertain way i now. Suppose the Lyttelton tunnel

were bombed in no uncertain way or earthquake-stricken as was Napier; how would we get along? The dearest and most scarce commodity just now is work. Port Christchurch, as your wise correspondent says, would absorb up to 10,000 workers on and connected with the construction, and £15,000 of new money would go into circulation each week. Politics are the gadgets that side-track the mass of the people while the wrong things are being done. In any case Lyttelton is only a canal dredged under sea and must silt for all time. Lyttelton is seven miles from Cathedral square, Port Christchurch at most four miles, a difference of three miles each way—six in all. Each freight hauler will do six unnecessary miles at a cost of. one shilling a ton mile—6s to 10s each trip for nothing. Our local small farmers have to ship their produce to Wellington and Auckland to cater for overseas ships that do not come here. They lose these unnecessary transport charges, as here they could drive their own waggons alongside the ships. There are none so blind as those who will not see, and here these are vested interests. —Yours, A PIONEER'S SON. April 10, 1933.