HARBOR BOARD MATTERS.

Evening Star, Issue 10391, 12 August 1897, Page 2

HARBOR BOARD MATTERS.

ro THE EDITOR. Sm,--I am notgoioc to follow "Common Sense" all through his letter, whioh appeared in your issue of Saturdayjast, but allow me space to deal only with the following clause, via. :-r-*' The Harbor Board are not competent to carry on the work before them." Pray, " Common Sense," who then is competent? The Viotoria channel was devised by eminent engineers, was approved of and sanctioned by a board composed largely of eminent men, mostly merchants, members cf the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce, with what results? Let me briefly state them. The Board of that date expended, say, £500,000 or thereabouts in the Upper Harbor, and gave us, when our borrowed money was all exhausted, 3ft more water than we had before a penny was spent. (I can remember quite well a vessel drawing 14ft 6in coming up the old channel to somewhere near where the Rattray street Jetty now ends.) This result was obtained—let me say it again—by the expenditure of, say, £500,000, and exhausted the/ best,efforts of "able men " and •' capable engineers." Believe me, Mr Editor, and Mr " Common Sense " as well, it will be many years before we recover from the effeots of that stupendous and expensive blunder, for which the whole community are now suffering. I have been told that Mr Stephens, whom your correspondent would fain belittle, stood almost alone in protesting against the insane project. Who would "Common Sense" have to manage our harbor affiirs? The men who are steadily improving; it out of ourrent revenue, without making any fuss, and who, we are led to believe, are doing it at a cheaper rate than ever it was done before, and who, we are told, have reasonable hope of reducing the cost of dredging in the near future still more ?—or would he have the control revert into the bandß of those "able men" or those "eminent engineers " that he wota of ? If the latter, I do not think he will find much support in this community. Mayhap he would like the control of our harbor works himself, so as to be able to hand it over to some friend he could name.—l am, etc., Citizen. Dunedin, August S.