PATEA MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1880. WANGANUI AND PATEA.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 523, 22 May 1880, Page 2

PATEA MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1880. WANGANUI AND PATEA.

The harbor at Wanganui is a sore vexation, and its mismanagement is being .locally, discussed in sorrow and in anger. The Harbor Board have been financing, in anticipation of raising a lohn to continue the navigation improvements, .or rather the river works, for “ improvement” has been a backward move. The .Board have reduced the amount of the proposed loan, because the larger loan' would not “ float; ”' and they have ; obtained . hank accommodation in themreantime on what appears to fie hard, terms.. -They have , negociated: ‘ and, pawned 25,000 acres of reserved land. * The money Ts now spent, the land.is locked up, and the reduced loan has yet to be floated. All this seems to show'that the Harbor Board at Wkhgahui consist ol men

who may be smart shopkeepers, but are not competent to manage a large public trust. To expect a large loan to be placed easily on the market, at a time when the work already executed has made the river seriously worse than it was before, is a piece of credulity hard to understand. We in Patca would rejoice to see the Wanganui river improved to the capacity of ocean-going ships, and the sooner the better for us. But we try to look facts in the face. Give us the use of one-half the sum of £60,000 for improving this readily improvable river of Patea, and we will show the bunglers at Wanganui how not to begin at the wrong end. For an expenditure of about' £BOOO the Patea Harbor Board have so changed the bar entrance to this river, that a larger craft than can now get into Wanganui may enter with case and safety. This is the result of only six months’ scour, since the channel course was straightened. That action is continuous, and the depth on the bar, as the unfinished wall now stands, is perceptibly increasing from week to week. The difference between the Patea works and those at Wanganui is that wo fool the benefit already, although two-thirds of the work is yet to do. The improvement has been so great in a brief period, that we are justified in enlarging our expectation as to what the Patca river can be made to do, as a convenient and safely sheltered harbor for a very largo district of rich and almost undeveloped country.