AUCKLAND HARBOUR BOARD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5497, 30 June 1879, Page 6

AUCKLAND HARBOUR BOARD.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,—This immaculate public body are about to add another blunder to their already overflowing budget. They propuse to tax local produced commodities, when the whole .-world is howling for free trade. They impose a tax on firewood, coal*, and timber, f his tax, will tell on every poor man's home. They impose a wharfage rate on all timber brought by the way of the sea, 6d a hundred feet ; all firewood, 4d a ton • all coals landed, 6d a ton. Is this meant to foster our railway ? If so, what is to become of our coasting fleet, once Auckland's beauty. Are they, by prohibition, by port charges, to be driven from our wbarf. Lsok to it, ye blind guides, and have some thought for the settler trying to win a home in the wilderness. Strong censure was put on a pilot—for what, because his vessel would not answer her helm in shoal water. I never knew one that would, unless it was a flat-bottomed barge with rudder like a barn.door. What will be done to those whose duty it was to tend as pilot on the ship Isle of Bute. The port has escaped the blame of a disaster, worse than the Miltiades, or Anazia, whose strandings at our very doors brought the port of Auckland into such unenviable notoriety.—l am, &c, Duke Humphrey.