The Oamaru Mail WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE NEW ZEALAND AGRICULTURIST. TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1879.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1033, 12 August 1879, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE NEW ZEALAND AGRICULTURIST. TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1879.

The Australasian Shipping News, which appcara to be the organ of the Australasian Underwriters' Association, has based tut article on the Association's New Zealand agent's published correspondence in reference to the Oamaru and Timaru harbors. It says " A warm controversy has been going on for some time between those who hare an interest in the fortunes of Timaru and Oamaru as shipping ports and others who, perhaps from having suffered in pocket by losses afc those ports, are not disposed to look at the thing from the same favorable point of view." The writer of the article implies that losses have been suffered through sending vessels to Timaru and Oamaru, and says that a warm controversy has sprung up between those who have suffered such losses and those interested in those ports. We will let Timaru fight its own battles. Tho excellence or otherwise of the Timaru Harbor is nothing to do with us. No one would be so unjust—except, perhaps, Mr. J. U. Russell —as to maintain that because the port of Timaru is good or bad, the port of Oamaru must be good or bad also. Such an hypothesis would be rather a queer basis for the Association to act upon in computing its tariff of charges. If only those who have suffered through losses that have occurred in the port of Oamaru were to raise their voices in its condemnation, not a sound would be heard. Mr. J. V- Russell is the man that has done the mischief by misrepresentation, which may or may not have been wilful. His letters have gone forth to the world bearing on tho face of them authoritativeness that creates in those whose good opinion is of tho greatest value to ob at least suspicion that is most damaging. It is known hero how value-J

lees arc the opinions of Mr. Russell, but it is not so on the other side and in other parts where it is important that our exact position should be known. The writer in the Australasian Shipping News atatc3 that " believers in these two roadsteads aver—first, that no wrecks (to speak of) occur there ; and next, that when they do, it is because the masters of vessels have disregarded or disobeyed the instructions given to them by the harbormasters." Tin's is stating the truth—can anyone even Mr. J. I". Russell, who, it appears, is not particular to a trifle—confute the.it: statements ? We challenge anybody to do it. e are not afraid of even the representative of the Underwriters' Association in this Colony. He Jias not made a statement that docs not savor of strong prejudice against us and for the larger ports of the Colon}'. He appears to think that his bread and butter depends upon the adoption of such a course Other ports may not —indeed they cannot, boast of such an immunity from disaster as we can, but Mr. Russell either does not know that or he does not care to recognise it. "We are surprised that those in Australia interested in our port did not view with suspicion the statements of a mail who, not being able to bring forward solid accusations, was compelled to have recourse to flights of imagination. He said, it will be remembered, that lie " would rather be a mile up in the air, hanging on to the fragments of a burst balloon, than on board a vessel " which had collided with the Breakwater. This production of our detractor, although portending an abnormal condition of his intellect—that is, that he had been carried away by his subject and become the victim of a rhapsodic flight—is perhaps the only atom of truth to be found in Mr. Russell's communications, for " there is no accounting for taste." We are gratified at the closing remarks of the writer of the article. He says that " the list of casualties that have occurred in Timaru during the past eight years is shorter than would have been anticipated from the remarks so often made against the Port." He might have added that no casualty at all—unless the Franklyn Belle can be called one—has occurred during that period at Oamaru. These are facts. Let the Underwriters' Association weigh these against the puerile, ungenerous, and unfair statements of Mr. Russell.