WAITARA HARBOR EXPENDED £13,000 V. NEW PLYMOUTH HARBOR EXPENDED £300,000.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume IX, Issue 1685, 26 July 1887, Page 2

WAITARA HARBOR EXPENDED £13,000 V. NEW PLYMOUTH HARBOR EXPENDED £300,000.

To the Editor of the Star. > Sib,— Now tbat the rate dem»nd.-a<kei are sent out by the New Plymouth t Harbor Board it may not be out of place to show your readers' the benefit (de) they are getting for the expenditure of £300,000 on a breakwater for New Plymouth. The following two items are taken from, the Taranaki Herald of the 20th instant: — " Shipping.— Waitara.— Departed. —^Jnly 20 — s.s. Staffa, for Onebunga. Cargo — 1000 cases, 40 casks meat, Freezing Co. — July 20— s.s. Gairloch, for Ooehunga. Passengers— Judge Wilson, Messrs. Kean, Waters, Thompson, Lily (2), and steerage. Cargo— 9o cattle, 800 sheep, Winks; 4 tons meat, Freezing Co. ; 80 pkgs. butter ; sundry." Local — " Tbe s.s. Penguin arrived at the breakwater at about 7.80 this morning, lauded mails and passengers, and left for Nelson an hour later. '.She came inside the breakwater, but, owing to the heavy choppy sea running, did not get alongside." Your readers will see that two steamer*, fully laden with passengers and cargo, were able to leave Waitara with paße and safety at tbe same hour that, the Penguin could only manage to land mails and passengers in a boat at New Plymouth, and some intending passengers who went out to embark on board of her bad to return, as it was not. safe to again venture out with the boat, and they consequently had to take train to Wellington to get to Nelson, unable to go by the Tarnnaki harbor after over £300,000 bat been expended there, for which we haVe to pay a rate of la in the j6, whilst here at Waitara where less than £18,000 has been spent on training wallß, and for which we pay nothing (the revenue of tbe port paying all expenses), in the same weather steamers leave with perfect safety, and with £50,000 expenditure the Penguin could havo entered and left Waitara yesterday at 8 a.m., landing and taking in her cargo and passengers, which bave now either been taken past or left behind. No wonder the poor taxpayer object* to p&y his rates fov interest on inch a work. which is neither use or ornament.— l am, &c,

An Unfortunate Ratepayer. Waitara, July 23.