The Opunake Times. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1896. SHIPPING FACILITIES.

Opunake Times, Volume IV, Issue 168, 11 February 1896, Page 2

The Opunake Times. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1896. SHIPPING FACILITIES.

All the ports along the West Coast between Wellington and Mauakau are at present in a most unsatisfactory position. Tiie Wanganui Harbor Board is very much divided as to the best means to adopt in order to keep the river open ; Patea has got into an extremely bad state, no boat being able to enter for weeks; and New Plymouth and Waitara are also in a very unsatisfactory state. The majority of the businesspeople of Manaia and the intervening townships are anxiously looking forward to the completion of the Opunake jetty, as they then intend shipping all their goods through this port once regular communication is again established. During the time that the jetty was used by the steamers, the longest interval without a steamer calling was ten days, and this was caused by want of freight, not weather. Opunake has the supreme advantage of being open at all states of the tide. Five times out of six steamers made a point of working this port at low water, so as to get away and catch Waitara, Patea, or Wanganui, any of which they could only negotiate at high water. When the jetty is in working order again the business people from Manaia to Puugarehu will need to take concerted action and establish a regular and reliable service. If they club together and put all their freight into one boat they will pretty fully occupy its services, and then such boat will have to study the port, as being fully laden with goods for here she will not have to study the state of the tides at other places. It is only a week or two back that a steamer had returned to Wellington after being out eighteen days. She was bound to Patea but could not get in, and as she was full of Patea

freight she could go nowhere else. Another steamer was looked in Patea for ten 'days and could not get out ; still freight is found and run there for little more than one-half what is charged to Opunake. If all the freight which should naturally drain through this port were put into one boat it should be carried for 15s per ton, and if a guarantee were given of the freight there would be no difficulty about the steamer, as failing either of the lines now calling here taking it, a steamer ■would soon be chartered for the purpose. We would impress on the business people in Manaia and the other surrounding townships, that they are very directly interested in establishing good shipping facilities at this port, as it will be the only one on which they can rely, and they should bestir themselves to assist the Wharf Company in carrying cut the works. The Company’s first object is to provide shipping accommodation, and those who have put their money in it look more to this than making it a money-mak-ing concern.