GUARANTEE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 273, 11 August 1908, Page 7

GUARANTEE.

WILL IT SUPPLANT BETTERMENT ? MIRAMAR PREPARED TO PAY, It is held by many that the betterment jlause in the Wellington Harbour Board's Empowering' Bill will liiil that measure when it shows itself in Parliament. Miramar itself is between the devil and the deep sea. For its own economical aggrandisement it would like to see the full scheme carried out, and a sort of " Wellington, continued," established at the head of Evans Bay, but there are others who kick violently at the pioposed betterment rate, and regard it as an imposition that is only to benefit city manufacturers, who are tired of paying city rents and rates. Mirainar, in its agitation, has -proposed an .alternative scheme to tho Harbour Board,' which has metaphorically wrapped a wet towel round its head in a dark back room to think out the matter.. The Miramar Borough Council properly considers its broad acres a field for commercial endeavour, and is pro- . posing a guarantee in place of a betterment i rate. It wants the present wharf extended, and made otherwise adequate for the rapid handling of coal,. timber, and general cargo, the "cutting" made a chain wide, and tho roadway, from the entrance to the wharf to the flat on the eastern side of tho cutting, lowered to the level of Miramar flat. Tho offer is that this work should be done .by the Harbour Board, and that any loss sustained (in interest) during a period of five years would be made good by the Borough Council, the assumption being that if no loss was sustained during' that period the wharf would then bo on a money-making basis.

As before mentioned, the Harbour Board is thinking hard about tho new proposaHwhich drops the matter of reclamation altogether).