A CRESTFALLEN DEPUTATION.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1699, 15 March 1913, Page 13

A CRESTFALLEN DEPUTATION.

AND A VALUABLE "SOP." In the year 187S there was Considerable' agitation in Gisborne over the question of building a breakwater to protect: tlio river harbour from tho fury of the great waves which whin the shores of Poverty Bay during the height of a storni in Hie South Pacific Ocean. As the result of a publio meeting which was called to discuss the matter, a deputation, consisting of the Mayor and two other members of tho Borough Council, was sent to Wellington to ask for somo assistance from the Government in connection with the project. Tho members of tho deputation wero not at all cheered by their reception, but; they wero not to "be dis-. posed of lightly, and nftor a fortnight's persistent ogit.'ion they received from tho Government the Tauwharoparae block of land containing •ii.OOO acres, as a harbour grant.. Realising that nothing more was to be obtained, tho crestfallen deputation returned to Gisborne. feeling that, their mission had been practically a failure. Tho moro gift of forty-four, thousand acres, of land, then of little value, was considered trivial, nnd only a sop to pet; rid of them. But ivhat a chafige tlio intervening years have wrought. The unappreciated "sop" of thirty-five years; ago is now a very valuable endowment, yielding something like .CGOOO per annum In rentals, nnd this large income now materially assists in making it unnecessary for the rate to be collected to lnet't'interest on the harbour loan. Probably no bolter example than this could be given of the rapid increase in the value nf Poverty Bay lands within recent years: