BUNGLING OR WORSE.

Evening Star, Issue 10341, 15 June 1897, Page 3

BUNGLING OR WORSE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —How long are the Harbor Board going to be allowed to carry on in the way they do at present ? Here is this channel again causing shippers, carters, and everybody interested a vast amount of trouble, expense, and waste of time. On Saturday morning last, at about ten o’clock, I met one of my carters who had been waiting about the wharf since eight o’clock vainly attempting to get rid of his load for the Monowai, when news came to hand that this steamer would be unable to come up to Dunedin owing to the depth of water iu the channel being insufficient to permit of her doing so. This meant, therefore, that the carter wasted an hour and a-half at least of his time, and railage to Port Chalmers was incurred, all of which the shipper has to pay for. This is not the experience of one shipper alone, but of many, and matters are coming to such a pass now that the authorities in question would do well to show more enterprise iu their administration. Another matter that requires the immediate attention of the Harbor Board is that they should allow the shipping companies more shed accommodation. Here was the Anglian last week with insufficient room to work her cargo, and it took the carters quite one and three-quarter hours each waiting at the wharf before they could get rid of their loads. The callousness of the Harbor Board is exasperating beyond endurance, and if the citizens of Dunedin would only realise the vast quantity of trade that is being diverted to the Bluff instead of coming to Dunedin in consequence of our shallow channel they would take up the cudgels against the Harbor Board more strongly than they do, and insist on something being done to bring about a better state of things than at present exists.—l am, etc., One Interested. Dunedin, June 14.