RIYAL HARBOURS

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 195, 16 August 1907, Page 3

RIVAL HARBOURS

(By Telegraphs-Parliamentary Reporter.) .WELLINGTON. Thursday. The Premier made- an interesting statement of his views in regard to harbour development in the House to-night. A bill to constitute a new harbour district of Waitara, the port north of New Plymouth, was strongly opposed by the New Plymouth representative, on the ground that it would take £1,000,000 worth of ratable value from the New Plymouth Harbour Board's area.

Sir J. Ward took the side of the Waitara Bill. It appeared to him that if the House was to affirm the principle of not allowing development to go on in a smaller and younger harbour, because another portion of the district had borrowed money on the security of a rats levied over the whole district, then there would be no progress. He was looking at the matter not from tie standpoint of injuring New Plymouth, but of developing tbe whole province, which would result in good to the town. If the New Plymouth position had been taken up in the past there would have been no Oamarii, Xiniaru, and Port Chalmers Harbours existing in the South. It was, he considered, a good thing to see different districts striving for supremacy.