The Daily Telegraph. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1888.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5136, 4 February 1888, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1888.

It is not given to every coastal settlement to boast of a natural harbor. Settlement, for the most part, lias followed the soil rather than the inlets of the sea ; otherwise our largest populations would be found on the fiords of the southern island, nnd tho thriving communities that have no harbor would never have turned the wilderness into a garden. Is it then to bo accounted \into them as unrighteous that tho people of a prospering settlement should desire a harbor for the outlet of their produce F Surely not. The enterpriee and pluck, the characteristics of British colonists, which nerved men to face tho bush and subdue nature, also prompted them to make harbors where none existed. The good people of Oainaru, Timiiru. Turanaki, "Wangauui, Napier, Gisborne. Wesiport, Lyttelton, and Duueitin, may, in this respect, have been j flying , in the fiioo of Providence, but as sure ! as a colonist wants a harbor he will try to iret ono. But Lyttelton nnd Dunedin Tabor under the impression that in the thousands of pounds they have- expended in channelling, and in providing shelter for ships, they have been merely _ assisting nature, while it was quite wicked for Oainaru and Timaru to make harbors where Providence had clearly never intended there should be anything of the kind. Those two obstinate settlements, however, in spite of all opposition, scientific and divine, as Christchureh engineers used to affirm, have demonstrated the possibility of shipping I their produce away without tho kind intervention of either* Lyttelton or Dunedin. And this is frail and wormwood to the " natural ports." Now, according to its own idea, the port of ports of New Zealand is "Wellington, nnd woe betide the luckless " muddy creek" that aspires .to go between the wind and dignity of the Empire city. There are but two ports for tho North Island, Auckland and Wellington, and according to the mouthpiece of the latter it crying sin nnd shame for audacious men to'waut any more. Like the old lady who drew comfort from tho reflection that the wicked shall be turned into hell, tho New Zealand Times derives some consolation from its own prophecy that the ratepayers of the several Harbor Board districts must come to bitter grief. It can foreseo no i uwt t.nuination to tho reckless policy that inspired borrowing for harbor purposes, than that the Boards will be unable to meet tbeirengagements. And then? Oh, rapture! They will call upon tho Government to help them, but no Government shall hear them ; they shall be inado to suffer the torments due" to their wickedness in taking commerce from "Wellington. Our contemporary is so certain that the troubles of the Boards are close at hand that it has no doubt a formidable and combined effort will be made "to compel ♦he colony to assume the responsibilities of these "embarrassed, not to say insolvent Boards." But then, as water to the thirsty traveller, comes tho consolation in the thought that that effort will bo unavailing. " Tho colony simply cannot afford it." And the Times continues " even if it could it would be. a scandalous misappropriation of the general taxpayers' money to fling it right and left into the sea inpayment for the preposterous works in which small knots of residents on the banks of nearly every little muddy creek on the extensive coasts of New Zealand have' revelled for years while tho borrowed money lasted and while the burden of interest was not felt. It will of course be, said that these Boards cannot continue paying their interest, and will become defaulters. This is very possible. Tt has been openly threatened by more than one of them. And we shall be told that to save the credit of the colony it must take upon its own shouldeis the burdens which the local bodies have, with utter reckless-

ness, undertaken, well knowing that they could never sustain them. Wo entirely dissent from this view. It will bo said that New Zealand's public credit will suffer if this is not done. We doubt even that. But if so—what then? Is that any reason why a transaction should be perpetrated which, in plain terms, would bo a most ra»cally job and swindle ? Surely not. Let those who have wilfully got into the difficulty get out again as best they can. Enable them to tax themselves as much as is requisite, and to impose shipping dues sufficient to meet obligations. If this kill tho trade of any port nobody will rially suffer but the grasping crew who have done the mischief. The expenditure has been in no sense for the colonial benefit, but absolutely the reverse, for it has been incurred in. seit'ui'j up {viiipctilioit with the railways comlna-tcd by the colony. No; all this wickedly extravagant harbor manufacture round these Islands has been simply undertaken for the puipo.se of causing local expenditure of borrowed money not otherwise obtainable, or of forcing up into fictitious importance various little two-penny halfpenny villages that had no other chance of growing beyond their natural and reasonable dimensions, or of flattering the vanity of a second-class port jealous of its inferiority, or iv fencing in open roadstetula in order that mere seaside towns might boast themselves "ports." NoGovemmentand no Parliament has a right to call on the general taxpayer to pay for these selfish and costly fre.iks, and wo sincerely trust that the first Government who try it on may be most soundly and iimtlly beaten, whoever they may be." Iv the words that we have italicised we have the key-note of the whole of the above hysterical outburst. llawke's Bay product. should go by train to Wellington, and so should Tarnnaki butter. -The fact is the prosperity of the Empire City depends upon the expenditure of a floating population and of an overgrown civil service, and knowing upon what a flimsy foundation it rests, it is in a constant state of nervous anxiety lest other porta should arise in Cooks straits and on tho East coast.