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Grey River Argus, Volume XV, Issue 1897, 4 September 1874, Page 2

The Alhambra, from Melbourne, arrived off Hokitika yesterday afternooD, and will, ■weather permitting, be tendered here to-day. She takes passengers for all New Zealand ports and Melbourne. Our contemporary, the "West Coast Times," has, during the last few days, indulged in strong comparisons between the conditions of the Greymouth and Hokitika bars, and hai been very wroth that we have mentioned the simple facts that vessels on the. Melbourne and coasting trade have lately declined to visit that port, and the passengers have been landed here, and passed on by coach, because the bar at Hokitika was not fit for working with any reasonable degree of safety. They complain that the Anchor Line of steamers have not gone south for some time, a- d attempt to throw the blame on some one in Greyni -uth for stopping them, but w ■ naturally imagii.e that if any information on the subject com«s here to stop the progress of a steamer south, it comes from tho agent or harboi -master in Hokitika, who ought to be about the best judges as to the condition of the port. The owners of the Anchor Line of boats are not the men to throw aside the Hokitika trade, if their vessels could enter the port with any degree of safety, and no apprehension on this ground need be entertained by our contemporary. Great indignation is also expressed as to the landing here, on Wendesday, from the Albion, of the Hokitika passengprs, and a very foolish attempt is made to throw blame on the local agent here for having used some "hanky-panky " means of inducing them to come ashore in order to benefit the port. The com laint as to the detention of the mails is quite unfounded, as on every occasion when they have been landed here, they have been immediately dispatched south, with far more consideration for the public convenience than has ever been shown in the same department at Hokitika. It so happens that the Albion was tendered by the Titan at Hokitika, but the usual tender, the Waipara, was known to be absent, and it "was oniy by the Titan leaving this port early and running down for the purpose, that the Nl'ionwns tendered there. On this mutter the "Times'' says, that "it i* quite certain that som v gross misruf.resenta'ions wf»re made by some one »s to t■« state of the bar. but at the same tim it is very strange, that iv the facts of v;sseis b.-ing towed in and out for some days past, and the C"n>equent certainty of the large boat being tendered, that anyone should have had the audacity to state what he, or 'hey, must, or ou K ht to have known to be false, for what purpose we cannt say. The Harbormaster telegraphed from here as to the state of the bar that th«re was a 'moderate swell,' but that could by no stretch of nautical or agent imagination be tortured into a warning that the »'ar wa* impracticable. We of course acquit the Greymouth public of any complicity in the matter, but that an injustice has been done to this is evident, by some one connected in some way with the shipping there. Cap 1 am Turnbull cannot be blamed, for he was not appealed to." What possible complicity iv this matter the Greymouth public could havf, we aTe at a loss to conceive. If the Hokitika port; and bar are as good as represented, and if they have been misrepresented, our contemporary must look a little nearer home for the author than "the Greymouth public "