NELSON HARBOR IMPROVE MENT.

Evening Star, Issue 11674, 5 February 1902, Page 3

NELSON HARBOR IMPROVE MENT.

[Spbcui. to tex Stab.]

NELSON, February 5. The improvement of the harbor is the finrt question of the hour in Nelson at the present time. Long-headed business men are beginnin- to see that if any appreciable advancement i.» to be made it must be through the medium of the port. A loan of £65,000 was lately authorised for carrying out the scheme, propounded by Mr Leslie Reynolds, of Dnnedin. for cutting through the natural breakwater known as the Boulder Bank and constructing a channel large enough to admit both ordinary shipping and big cargo carriers. The announcement made yesterday by Mr John Graham, chairman of the Harbor Board, that the loan had been placed on the most favorable terms led me to interview him concerning the scheme and the results expected from it, which are of general interest to the colony. The money, he explained, was available whenever they were readv to begin operations. The sum, of £20,000" would be supplied by local investors, who had confidence in the project, and the remaining £46,000 by a well-known colonial institution, at 4 per cent interest. It was optional for the Board to repay in fifteen or twenty years. The other term? were that the money was to be drawn by instalments of not less than £5,000" at a time, extending over a period of two years from the date of the acceptance of the loan. The Board proposed these terms, and have not yet been officially apprised of their acceptance, the cable from headquarters in Australia having odlv reached the chairman two days ago. The period named was necessary, as there is a deal of preliminary work to be done, such a* the construction of necessary plant in the shape of a dredge, steam launch, e c. Plans for the- dredge and other works will, Mr Graham says, be completed within the next six weeks, and ax soon afterwards ns possible tenders will be invited for eonsturction. It is intended to have the dredge and as much other plant as possible made in the colony, some of it in Nelson. The spot selected for the channel through the Boulder Bank is about midway between the lighthouse and the present' entrance. It will be 600 ft wide, and carry 15ft of water at low spring tides and 27ft at high spring tides. Any of the ordinary trading boats will be able to enter at all times, and there will be sufficient depth for ocean tramps at high water springs and probably at high water. It means that if cargo boats are encouraged In come it. will save Nelson £1 per ton on cargo that now passes on to Wellington on transhipment lack here. The estimated cost of the works is £62,000, so that the Board have a margin to come and go on. The work should be finished in two years from its commencement, or say three j years from now, a* it will take from nine to twelve months to construct the dredge and to do other preliminary work. The estimate covers everything "(including Mr Keynolds's commission), and all the plant itself, absorbing one-third of the total cost of the work. '-The dredge will probably be kept permanently for harbor reclamation, the Board having a large future asset in the mud flats. The Board, who have only been working a little over a year, have already saved £3,000 of their income, which is now sufficient to meet the' 4 per cent, interest on the loan. One of the sights of Jubilee week will be an explosion of guncotton, some 1,2001b of which has been stored here for a long time, and is to be destroyed by order of the Defence Minister. The engineer has approved of a heavy charge being exploded in a shaft sunk in the site of the channel to be carried through the Boulder Bank. Captain Falconer, who is here for the purpose, believes that the effect of the explosion will be to form a crater about 40ft long by 25ft deep, which will make an effective beginning of the harbor scheme.