HARBOURS & WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXIII, Issue 56, 27 March 1901, Page 2

HARBOURS & WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING.

{Jndeb the above heading a writer in the Warrnambool Standard has a very appreciative article regarding New Plymouth harbour. Our'contemporary which is published in Victoria says ; " A progressive port" is the title of a well got up illustrated brochure just published under the auspices of the Harbour Board of New Plymouth, a rising seaport on the #ss* coast of New Zealand. Considerable enterprise is evidenced in sending copies to other ports for perusal by shipowners, traders and shipmasters—three copies having reached Warrnamhool. Intelligible pheto-lithographs of the breakwater, wharf, shipping, eto., are introduced, with plans of the works. Tho descriptive letterpress is so concise, and the subject so vitally interesting to Warr-j nambool residents, in its bearing upon this port, that I append it in glebe,"

After publishing the report the writer j gops on to say:—The above report is i, highly creditable, alike to the energetic townspeople of New Plymouth is their successful endeavours to so vastly imprtvothe comTuerca oF their town, ;isd ito the Government of New Zealand I that ccuntennncf-s such endeavours ■and looks to the welfare of its outports, in marked contradistinction to the Govumment of an Australian State I could mention. New Plymouth is in the province of Taranaki and from tha last edition of Psars' encyclopedia, page 442, I find its population is 3,350 and, with the district, 7,936. Warrnarnbool (Municipal Directory, mfe 201—545) has a population of 6,600, and with the Shire district 16/.HIQ! " It will he noted that the New Plymouth people were without many advantages wo possess ; they had to construct a rubble groin to protect their 1 breakwater and to build a separate wooden piled wharf inside. Hero we have a breakwater needing no outside proteetion, and, in itself, a splendid wharf. We have, in addition, a leading scour available for keeping the t berths clear, automatically instead of the perpetual dredging that must obtain at Naw Plymouth. Many people here bewail the failure of the breakwater, the silting up of Lady Bay and its irretrievable ruination; bull maintain that the breakwator is a valuable, effective and magnificent work, and that the bay itself is just as good as it ever was, only that a lot of sand 1 through sheer neglect, has been allowed to accumulate on the top of the battooc of it. The Town Council has never shown any apathy in dealing with tht port—very much the reverse, but tU< Victorian Government departments re sponsible for the ports, outside ©f Mel bourne, certainly have ; and, in tin meantime, eur trade is drifting to otbei parts and to expensive railways, Ito mediate dredging should be insistoc upon, even if we have to petition thi Federal Parliament to do so, and tlv appointment, free of cost to the tows people, of Mr. Bates, the hcrbour ex pert, now in tha colonies, to advisupon some scheme for the more per manent presentation of eiltation by th< natural scour at our caramand. Mean tioie, the New Plymouth report I hav given is not very pleasant reading t<