HARBOR .BOARD ELECTION.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5302, 8 February 1879, Page 2

HARBOR .BOARD ELECTION.

Sir,— On f Monday next the 10th inst,, the Burgesses of Napier have to elect 3 members to represent the interest o| the town at the Harbor Board.' One of the first fruits of Liberal Government is offered to = the public. Old things have passed away. The people 'themselves wifiinow; ■ i - elect who is to manage or mismanage pub- \ licmonies. Itpr.opoßerto.urgg afewreasons. why every citizen on. the : roll should ■ exercise a wise vigilance over this election ob Monday. The Board of nominees now • about to be dissolved .was the creation of Mr Ormond, the members, now ( sitting'^ were those gentlemen whom he, the superintendent, delegated -to honor. TKe ~ result has not justified the wisdom of the,,? superintendent, however ite'may have gratified the claims of personal friendship. The Harbor Board has been an incompetent and expensive corporation, adding blunder to blunder, careless of the public funds, jealous of the privilege and prestige of the class the majority of its members represented. ' And its good ? works are patent now, consisting of af; ruined harbor, and a ruinous lawsuit. Who have the public to thank for this 1 etate of things ? First- and formost is Mr Ormond ; secondly, Mr Kinross ; thirdfy> ' ' Mr Sutton; fourthly, Mr Kennedy, who would not only swallow half a loaf, but a » baker's dozen at the will of the leaders, To these 4 gentlemen and their following, for strange as it appears even weak goodnatured Mr Kennedy^' has, a following, Napier is indebted for . iW present stag- * nation in trade. To, . tnem also are we indebted for the speedy prospect of losing the entire interior! trade South of Olive. These self-appointed rulers have . drawn others in despair to project th| Kidnappers harbor. 'They have laid the foundation of an Inland City at or near Olive. Unless there are changes in our public men Olive must in a very short time be the distributing centre and goods emporium for the Province. Now with, astounding assurance, these men put forward two of their members, Mr Suttoii' and Mr Kennedy, to : court the suffrages of the citizens of Napier. • For some time past a few members of the present board have been making hopeless struggles in the interest of the people and to save the extravagant waste : of public moneys. Headed by Mr Vautier, who again will be on the board by virtue of his office as Mayor of Napier, the small minority have struggled in vain against the governing class. Mr Kinross always had a casting vote and a sneer to hurl at the mutineers. He would even be chair-' man again, much against his peaceful., nature, to keep out Mr Vautierand allow; him to have the casting vote intheinVterest of the people. He is no doubt, again ready to sacrifice himself, together : with Mr Ormond, and become the nominee of the Wairoa County Council. Mr Sutton and Mr Kennedy now come to us for '*• election. 1 think they played their 'first innings without asking our leave. The: result of this innings is our almost ruinedX prospects as a town. Mr Weber put this, very . naively at Chvistchurch, when he exclaimed under" pressure in the box, (vide Lyttelton Times), " Would you have had the board publish to all the world that the harbor was ruined?" Well, perhaps this could not be expected, considering he and his board were the cause of the ruin. However, in spite of Mr Weber and his employers we are not ruined yet, certainly.

the action of the board and the state oi our harbor has not saved us. Our own energies can, however, save us. The election of upright men, disconnected with class faction and past blunders, v can inspire oui people with confidence, *f oan retrieve our evil reputation, and can teach the country that they need not risk their money at the Kidnappers for an honest harbor ] and an honest Harbor Board. The Government would be most anxious to see Napier become a harbor of refuge on the East Coast, yet they would think twice before they would sanction a loan after the past blunders to be expended by the present administrators. The breakwater can certainly and easily be accomplished and the people's money can be spent for the people's benefit. Mr Sutton tells us in his address the harbor works now completed have turned out just as he expected (a complete failure), and yet Mr Sutton voted for the expenditure of the money. What has been the results % Is insurance lower than before 1 Are freights reduced 1 ? Is the channel more, open to vessels 1 Is the bar less • dangerous, or does it give deeper water 1 The' engineer has answered all these questions in his report with an emphatic " no." I think Mr Sutton's interest is at West Clive and not at Napier. Let him go to the country and represent its interior interest as county- member. I would believe his talk about Oamaru if he had voted to spend the money .as at Oamaru. It is useless to tell us such stuff now after £70,000 has been wasted with his consent. Mr Sutton is wise, he knows if he can creep in for the town the interest he fights for", will get another vote. The County of Hawke's Bay will return another of the same kidney as himself, and the Kidnappers will have two friends in place of one. Mr Kennedy tellsius he was in favor of a breakwater. Whjt did he not promote it ? Why did he go_for half a loaf which was to cost £70,000. Did he' expect to build a breakwater from the crumbs of the loaf ? Such j men are not the stuff that public men should be made of. Even" if, as he says, he kn'bws what is right, he will never have the courage to do it. Public -apathy means public ruin. It Tvill not re-start Napier in the race of competing towns on the East Coast to know •afterwards that a few men have made their fortunes, while the town they elected to govern for many years has sunk into insignificance. I do earnestly appeal to my fellow-townsmen to awake to the importance of the struggle on Monday next. It is true it is only a Harbor Board election/ tut' in truth I hope it will be the dawn of public liberty and reawakened enterprise for the town and district of Napier.— l am, &c, Harbor. Sir,— The time for electing three members to represent the Borough of Napier at the Harbor Board will take place on Monday next, the lOfch instant. With your kind permission, I will venture to make a few remarks in reference thereto. Should the electors return men of common sense, and not_be led the same as the old board have been/, that is to say, " experimenting at the '^JubUW expense," ' some good might be the final result. - The present works will require renewing in the course of ten years;' 1 "if not carried away altogether" by theleavy N.E. gales which visit our port nearly every winter. I have given this matter every consideration at my hands, and have come to the conclusion that some schenie of a larger kind will be required. Th(B i plan proposed some 15 years past, for the\erection of a breakwater at the Bluff, is the only way to get over the difficulty, and ''make accommodation for. vessels of large tonnage, so as to allow Napier to compete with any other New Zealand ports, by'r&ducing rates of freight and insurance!' , l ' , The plan proposed by Mr M'Gregor for the erection of the small breakwater, is the most suitable, design for our requirement; "and will give ample accommodation for hundreds of years to come. It contains an area of 53 acres water inside, and /^giving a depth of ; water of 22 feet at low water, and 26 feet at high water, to*|he works now in progress at Timaru," and,, having the entrance open to the %&$.,. "will prevent any shingle interfering it, and keep it free from silt. -The cost of this work was estimated some 15 years past, at £160,000, but the same work can be done at the present time for £140,000 considering cement can ■ be procured at a lower* price, and the bulk of it could be manufactured close to the works. The way I propose to raise the amount, required would be by consolidating our present loan. In this case a loan of £215,000 would be required. Of late large loans have been floated in England for Australia at a rate of-4£ per cent, interest per annum. In our case I expect the amount could be raised at 5 per cent, per annum, but the loan might fetch only 94 or 96, consequently it would show a losb at first on the amount, but the works would take four or five years to complete, and during that time a large amount of interest would be accruing on the amount deposited, which would return 6 . per cent. The amount of interest required yearly would be £10,750, which the Board would be well able to pay, as the returns would be three, times what the returns are at present, by having a safe harbor for accommodating any class of vessels, and bringing trade to our port would make all our reserves valuable, which at present are only a perfect waste. In borrowing, the loan should extend over a period of 70 years, and for the first 20 years provide no sinking fund, but after that period have a sinking fund with interest thereon. I would also point out that our case would be similar to Oamaru, in which place property has advanced since the commencement of the breakwater some 850 to 900 percent., and with the increase of population Napier would become one of the I leading ports in New Zealand. — I am, &c. , Breakwater. Napier, Feb. 7, 1879.