The Foxton Port.

Feilding Star, Volume IV, Issue 6, 23 June 1883, Page 2

The Foxton Port.

Oue contemporary the Manawatu Times ha 9 recently made some severe comments on the Foxton Port, and the wretched apathy which exists among those who ought to be most interested in its welfare. VVe can safely endorse every clause in the indictment. There is a Harbor Boitfd which has merely a nominal existence, its members being satisfied with the honor of holding the position. They do not even making a pretence of attempting to do anything. The Board has no means of revenue, and while it remains as at present constituted, never will have. The trade of the port is now at a minimum. At one time in its history within the past seven yeara, Foxton had a good opportunity of securing the whole shipping businesi from Halcombe downwards, 1 whereby' thousands of tons of goods and millions of feet of timber would have annually been received and forwarded, if

the business people had made the smallest effort to attract it. This they did not do, and positively appeared annoyed that they were expected to do anything more than stand and look on, with their hands in their pockets, at trucks arriving and departing, consequently Wanganui has secured the trade. It is a melancholy fact that a tradesman or settler, either at Feilding or Palmerston, should find it cheaper and quicker to obtain goods or parcels from Wellington by way of Wanganui than by Foxton, notwithstanding the difference in railway and ocean mileage. This ought not to be the case, and would not be in a place where men of energy and determination were io be found. Given a splendid river, with a fair average depth of water on the bar during the whole year, a prosperous back country with a railway running through the centre of it, and the railway fed by good roads that reach to the farthest settlements, no other settlers in the world would rest satisfied with a condition of things such as now obtains in Foxton.