TUNNEL ROAD NOT NEEDED, SAYS MEMBER OF HARBOUR BOARD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18469, 22 May 1928, Page 5

TUNNEL ROAD NOT NEEDED, SAYS MEMBER OF HARBOUR BOARD.

In an address last night to the Addington Burgesses Association, Mr E. J. Howard. M.P., said that a publicity agent who visited this country last year, wrote an article on his return to Europe, in which he said “New Zealand is to-dav a satisfied provincial community without fresh impulse. The country has, as it were, fallen asleep on the culture step of the Victorian age. Her railways are miserable, her townships, young as they are. appear, here and there to be falling into decay." That apparently was the opinion of a man used to large cities, big ships, big docks and so on. But to the casual ob server it must appear that we were just drifting along. Mr Howard said that his recent visit to South Africa had convinced him that unless wc. woke up pretty soon we would get a shock that would knock all the sleepiness out of us. There was one good test to judge a country by and that was her transport system, the way we got our goods to the consumers, both here and at the other end of the world. It might be said with some truth that we had a good port at Lyttelton. So we had, yet a ship like the Asturias, for instance, would not come to our port under any circumstances. Whilst we had not had to turn away any ship becaiise we could not accommodate her, yet no one knew how many big ships would have come if we had had a more up-to-date harbour. We could not blink our eyes to the fact that comparing the past ten years with the previous ten years we had lost nearly three and a half million tons of shipping. This country was distant about thirty-two days from her principal market, said Air Howard, the ships coming to our shores cost roughly £3OO per day to keep afloat. Every day we could knock off the time it took to come and go would mean a vast saving. It was not only se«f time that had to be ( shortened, but also harbour time. The most up-to-date docking facilities and loading and unloading machinery must be provided. Lyttelton Harbour would have to be widened and deepened from the moles to deep, water. The weakest link in our transport service was, perhaps, the fact that the Government handled the railways and the boards handled the wharves. In his opinion the one body should handle our produce from the. farm to the ship, although he would like to see the one body handle it right to the market. Any handful of settlers along our coast could build a harbour and with ships charging a flat rate it meant that like our freezing works our transport service was being over-capitalised. With a number of slides Mr Howard traced the progress of Lyttelton Harbour from the coming of the first four ships. Other slideS showed the latest methods adopted in ports in other countries. Dealing with the proposed tunnel road. Air Howard said he could not see the need for it; boiled down the propaganda seemed to be based on a quarrel with the railway management. At no time had it been suggested that the present tunnel could not handle a lot more goods, even ~.0 the hauling of motor lorries through if that would cheapen and expedite the handling of -inward and outward cargoes. Mr Howard answered a number of questions and received a' hearty vote of thanks for his report as a member of the Harbour Board.