NELSON HARBOUR PROBLEM

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1396, 23 March 1912, Page 6

NELSON HARBOUR PROBLEM

Sir,-Oa Indny a deputation from Hip Nelsoni Harbour Board is to wait on tho lon. .Mr. Millar, Minister for Railways, lo urge the Government to increase tho vi ' °, f ,., ,v:l,er il!<ni H il I'ol'lion of the kelson Wharf, professedly "to necommod'ltn ocean liners.". I beg to point out hat this request, if gran>(l, would only menu iurthor money uselessly thrown "■way, and that it would not 'fit Nelson Harbour to accommodate ocean liners, but would only make shipping a littlo more convenient for the small vessels belonging o such companies as (ho Anchor and the Union Steam Ship Companies, whom alone, tho harbour improvements havo beneited hitherto. II is well known locally that (ho principal difficulty is not that connected with the inner harbour at -Nelson, but the existence of a liu'go bank of ceaselessly shifting sand and silt in tho miter harbour, blocking tho ontranco to the new cut dredged through tho Boulder Bank. This problem cannot bo solved without the further expenditure of nearly another million of money, on tho oop oi the 4:72,000 already expended on dredging, ami besides a nearly equal sum already spent by tho Government on ivhai'f extension.

liVea now the Nelson Harbour is practically condemned for ocean-going vessels, as lite agents of the chief shipping companies lniv.o told the Nelson Harbour Board that they dam not and will not again risk vessels of largo tonnage inside the treacherous sand-bank. What, then, is the good of wasting further money on operations inside the Boulder Bank?' I beg: lo suggest that any nionev spent bv tho Government in future should be put into a radically new scheme of harbour improvements, such as tho ship., canal scheme, which I proposed ten years ago, and which could even now bo carried out move cheaply and quickly than any attempt to cope with the treacherous sandbank which is throttling the industrial future of Nelson city and district—l om, "', JOSEPH TAYLOR. Nelson, Slarch 20.