BAY OF PLENTY HARBOUR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 56, 14 June 1950, Page 5

BAY OF PLENTY HARBOUR

Sir, —In my opinion the chances of Whakatane being the deep sea port for the Bay of Plenty is about three to one against Tauranga, even if it costs more to build a harbour at Whakatane. Before going any further I would like to say I think Whakatane is a very covetuous towm. It covers the harbour from Tauranga and it covers the 10,000 population town from Murupara and as covetuousness is one of the seven deadly sins Whakatane should be prepared to pay for its covetuousness in the future—or is it in this case just the devil looking after his own? That’s by way of protest of Whakatane covering our town.

Now I would like to make a guess at what will happen. First, I think Whakatane will get both the town and the harbour or it wil get neither, whereas Tauranga will get only one if it gets the harbour. Put plainly if Whakatane gets the harbour it is logical for it to g<*t the town also plus, of course, the pulping mills which would have been the cause of the town at Murupara. In plainer words still, it would perhaps be economical to rail all timber to a pulp mill at Whakatane from Murupara but i • certainly would not be economical to rail whole trees to a pulp mill at Tauranga. If Tauranga gets the harhour the big town and pulp mills will be at Murupara. If Whakatane gets the harbour no big town for Murupara. No big town for Murupara means a small farmers’ town for Galatea. I think private enterprise and the present Government will baulk at spending £2O million on a potential ghost town at Murupara, which one match and a high wind in a dry summer could create in 24 hours and it would be 15 years before the ghost town got rid of its ghosts with a new crop of trees. A lot safer and simple the powers that be may decide to, put the pulp mills and harbour at "Whakatane with extra town grafted on to the present town, which would have a balanced economy to sustain it if ever parts of the forests went up in smoke. Whakatane certainly looks the best bet. It would, be worth a fiver for a ringside seat of the behind the scenes battle between Tauranga champion O’Doidge of the silver tongue and Whakatane’s champion McSullivan of the heavy hammer. I think the Murupara champion is not getting a look in. In fact I thijnk he was thrown out of the ring and had his neck broke on November 30 last, and I am sorry to say some of Murupara’s leading citizens voted to throw him out.: But perhaps their thinking boxes were affected by a smoke screen put out by the big battleships down Whakatane-Tauranga way. Yours etc.,

OLD-TIMER

Galatea, June 12.