THE HARBOR QUESTION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3904, 24 January 1884, Page 3

THE HARBOR QUESTION.

[To in% Editor of the Daily Telegkapii.] g IB) —I fool grateful to Mr Vautier for the modorato tone of his rejoinder to my letter of the 18th instant. If the discussion on tho harbor question is carried on in this spirit, it will not only bo more in harmony with tho importance of tho subject, but your correspondent will, by tho omission of personal recrimination, trespass less upon tho space kindly granted in your open column. Mr Vautier states that my quotation from Mr Carruthers' roport printed in tho H.B. Herald is the first intimation ho has had that Mr Carruthers has promised only 15 to 16 feet at ordinary high water, but I feel certain that this matter must have escaped his memory, as I find from tho published proceedings that he was present at tho first and the second Board meetings, when this report was discussed. Further on Mr .Vautier says:—" In fact it was nothing uncommon some few years back for Mr Weber to state that such vessels as the Helen Denuy could take her cargo of wool.at the end of the eastern pior, which has been dry shingle ever since.'' Mr Vautier is mistaken upon this point, as I have never advised tho berthing of vessols at tho end 'of the pier. My suggestion, as , provod by the reports in the Harbor office, was to eroct landing platforms 14 feet wido near the middle of the eastern molo. This was objoctod to, as likely to interfere with the water-way. I have not altered my opinion upon this point, and I still believe that this ■would be the best way of providing berthage for the smaller wool ships. Tho dry shingle bank at' the end of the eastern mole would not be there if the Harbor Board had consented to expend the balance of £18,000 on the legitimate object, the extension of the mofesi " "'The'last point in Mr Vautier's letter I have to refer to is his quibbling at my statement that wo Have even now 25 feet •Wjthiii 40 feet of the cattle wharf. I" fully agrdo with Mr Vautier on the point that this great depth is of very little value to our port at present, but I take it as a proof that wlier'o Nature has made and maintains such a depth even for a short stretch only this depth can be obtained and maintained for the whole channel from the cattle wharf seaward, provided that the moles are carried into that depth. With regard to tho letter signed " Coode s Pook," showing that the prognostication jjf iay rpp,ort: of tho 29th January, 1877, ■|!hatn, further extension qf 40 aorps of beach would have to be made before the shingle pould travel round tho end of the eastern ptor, Jiiid not • been verified, I need only draw tho attontion of your correspondent to the- folldwiug facts,—■that in January, 1877, wo had! tho tost groins extended . 20Q • foot into tho sea. J that from that'date to the end 0f1879 thdi beach gradually increased until it reached from the end of the test groin to tho eastern extremity of the Bluff on. one side, and to within 100 feet of tho "Montinorenoy wreck V on the' other; : that, .subsequently,, the tost groin, which had been ' •~»<«truetect of white pine early in 1875, ■ gradually broke up, t«™™* W(i,nd necessarily tho shoro-lino receded vriin ffc, "aq that now," whoniho wholo groin ' has gyno, wo havp übo.u). 20 acres loss reclamation then wo hud thp'u. A single totanj box filled ■ with,. rubble added to tljo exjbremifcy of the groin would have j<aved it, ' tylt.thVß.oard lmspersistently refused any expenditure for the preservation the presei>t,wprks. I was very glad, to see by the raising W tela point' that your corres-*

pondont has taken the trouble to go over my old reports for the purpose of bringing homo to me some error, instead ot tollowin«- the general course of saying that by furnishing erroneous data to tho engineers successively consulted I have systematically misled them into erroneous conclusions.—l am, &c, Charles Webeh. Napier, 24th January, 188*.