Bluff Harbour Improvements

Southland Times, Issue 13286, 13 August 1895, Page 3

Bluff Harbour Improvements

At the monthly meeting of the Harbour Board yesterday the following letters were read. They are chiefly devoted to adverse criticism of comments that appeared in these columns sometime ago. Both, but especially that of Captain McDonald, throw some effective light upon the question of harbour improvement:—

" Bluff Harbour, 12th July, 1895. The Chairman, Bluff Harbour Board. Sir, — After reading the leading article in yesterday’s Southland Times on the harbour works it occurred to me that it would be necessary to make a few remarks upon it for the guidance of the new members of your Board, as the writer of the article is evidently under a misapprehension. He is wrong where be says that it would * seem pretty plain, however, that an extension to the westward is the one desirable.’ He is also in error in his statement * that for 150 feet the wharf should be pushed out ten feet so as to make it flush with the 300 feet of the wharf at which dredging operations are now being carried on.’ Were this done, the present deep water berth would be practically useless for large steamers, as it would be partly covered in and the vessels pushed out into shallower water. He is further wrong where he states * that piles for the extension he proposes would be driven to such a depth as would save undermining, even when excavations making the depth 28 feet at low water had been made.’ I need scarcely mention that piles are not driven through rock. He is further mistaken where he states that there would be a

• difficulty in carrying on contract operations concurrently with the ordinary work of berthing steamers, but by arrangement this difficulty could no doubt be overcome.’ I am not aware under the present circumstances how the difficulty the wricer refers to can be overcome. The return asked for by the Board was duly furnished at the May meeting, although the article states that such a return has never been furnished. As you are aware I have supplied the Board at the end of each month with a return showing the quantity of material removed by the dredge, therefore the Board could not be said to be working in the dark. It seems to me that the writer of the article in question could have got more reliable information had he applied to the proper source.—l have, etc., Norman Macdonald, Harbourmaster.”

The Chairman addressed the Board by letter as follows:—I also have read the article alluded to by the Harbourmaster, and found it loose and inaccurate throughout. I might mention that the one great object of the Board has been to get the work done as efficiently and as economically as possible to meet the requirements of the day, so far as our means would admit. The insinuation made in the article that a certain return has never been made and "that it is not unreasonable to conclude that it was withheld because what it might have disclosed would not have been to the credit of the system that had been adopted,’’ I say, has a strong tendency to the conclusion that the writer, whoever he is, has a knowledge of ways that are dark—at anyrate it provokes contempt for him. I might allude also to a letter in the same journal of the 10th July last, signed “Local Government,” which in my opinion bears the same relation to the article as the pilot fish does to the shark. It attempts weakkneed sneers at my action in inspecting the works in progress in the harbour from time to time. As my inspections were carried out with considerable risk to myself, and without fee or reward the senselessness of the writer’s sneer can be understood. The wi iter of the article, and the letter in question, may or may not have sense enough to have a motive for the remarks ; one thing is quite certain that fault finding and sneering require little ability.—l am, &c., Edwin Pollard

The letters were referred to the Harbour and Works Committee for consideration and report.