THE BLUFF HARBOR BOARD ENDOWMENT.

Southland Times, Issue 3180, 22 August 1878, Page 3

THE BLUFF HARBOR BOARD ENDOWMENT.

Editor Times:— '•Sir, there are some good points in your leading article this morning on the! ' Bluff "Harbor Endowment, and ProfessorH ;i Black's land speculation. Sometimesjas it seems tome, you hit the bulls-eye; but I'can'V agree with you that 10,000 acres would' be a sufficient endowment for improving the Harbor, no matter how jf snug" the block was, and however secure the title. If I recollect rightly,one only of the improvements recommended toy the Harbor Board's Engineer, namely the sea wall for wharfage and docks was estimatedto cost £40,000, and the 10,000 ' kcres would not pay for that just yet np, matter how well sold. Of course all the Board's available current revenue would have to go from year to year, in ' paying for those ntunerous- small public works which the public are always insisting that local bodies should^undertake, r

Butj yp.u<are quite right in suggesting that the Waste Lands Board,ought in the interests of the public, to exercise a proper check on land sharking, instead of encouraging it. . Why; if there -were any two things to effect which the Waste Land Board was appointed, and the Waste Lands Act passed, they were to settle bonafide cultivators and residents on the lafid^and to stop the little games of the mere land( gamblers, who neither reside nor cultivate, but merely keep other people from doingl'fiO: "So doubt it was for that reason that "the word in the Act respecting the power of sale in the hands of the Land Board was riot 1 -- "shall" but "may." Just now in Southland there seems, in some persons' minds; j a perfect mania on behalf of Dunedin speculators^ We really don't want men of that , sort here? ''sß they come to dp ; business in our towns, or to cultivate bur Hands, by all . means let them come" *as fast 'as they like. Bnt what^rl ! shbuld : like td : kn6w,ia the'use of '. men who merely come to buy up land, in order to selljatJ^a-'higher pricey" and so exclude the bonafide settler? The'sooner they are ignominiously kicked out the better. Whether the Inyercargiil .Waste 'Lands Board is in favor bf land gambling or not we shall find out this morning. They have all hitherto professed a different opinion. ' Thesis one point in your article which' you just glance at, but it seems to me deserving of verjyserious attention. If it is true that the mere speculators are to be allowed to purchase, .at>far<less than its value,- the only four or five/frpntages on .the Blufi Harbor Endowment, sandi the remainder becomes worth only 5s an acre {as* is quite possible), wouldit not follow'as a matter of course that if the Harbor Board issued debentures for £50,000, secured on 35,000 acres of land, they 1 must of necessity- ibecome insolvent to the extent of over £.30,000. This problem in arithmetic is easily worked out: — Their assets in real property would bej say — 5000 acres good land, at £2' ... £10,000 ' 30,000 acres mountain ranges, atjsl ...' , ...- "• ... ... • 7,500' * Total assets ' : ' £17,500 Liabilities ... ' 50,000 Deficiency £32,500 •In that «^ca%e' the public \rf Invercargill and Southland generally woulahave to thank our Waste •Lands'Board' for stopping all harbor '- f ot a pretly good nußtoer of years to /come. ■-'■- j . " * \ / /'Apologising for.the length of\rt]is letter, I am, &c., .":/ \ ' " V*MLANB. P.S.-!«!Gan you tell^meif ProfessoisßigfeKis' really going to., knock off his ] chemival.lectures a?Buneam\ pull off his coat, anowo^ a ftouSle 'furrow plough in/laxingHma District? \ t -„ / + \