SHIPPING INCREASE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 994, 10 June 1930, Page 10

SHIPPING INCREASE

MORE WHARVES MAY BE ERECTED ACCOMMODATION TAXED “Shipping has steadily increased and during the past 10 years overseas shipping has trebled itself. Accommodation lias been taxed, and if the demand continues to increase I feel seure that board will erect more wharves.” This statement was made by Captain H. PI. Sergeant, Auckland Harbour Master, in the course of an address to the Karangahape Road Business Promotion Society, at the fortnightly luncheon today. The Auckland Harbour, said Captain Sergeant, had a magnificent approach for shipping. He traced the various routes which overseas vessels took into the port and described the signaling and pilot custom. Inside the harbour limits there were 77 square miles of water and 1988 miles of waterfront, lie said. All the big reclamation works were carried out on property vested in the Auckland Harbour Board, the rest of the bed of the harbour being the property of the Marine Department. He exhibited a plan dated 1881 showing where the water encroached at that time. The first jetty erected in the harbour was the Wynyard Pier, which was built in 1851. Two years later the Queen’s Wharf was commenced, but it was not until 1904 that a definite scheme of works was commenced. In 1905, the King's Wharf was started and when the speaker joined the board’s staff in the same year 12 concrete piles had been driven.

The board had a scheme for the erection of three new wharves east of the King’s Wharf and if the country at the back of Auckland developed as it should, the speaker considered that the scheme would not be too ambitious. With, the aid of charts, the captain described the harbour in detail and the utility of various islands and works.