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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3627, 26 February 1883, Page 2

It is to be hoped that in the contemplation of a future commodious harbor the newly elected Harbor Board will not neglect present requirements, uor lose sight of the fact that a good deal can be diyiw to improve the make-shift avc noAvpossess. Under any circumstances some few years must elapse before any appreciable results could be obtained from neiv harbor works, and in the meantime something ought to be done to make the best of Avhat Aye have got. Tho need of improvement is never so apparent as AA'hen passengers either arrive from or depart for a steamer in the roadstead at night. On Saturday last the same scenes presented themselves that for a Aery longtime past have served as much as anything to make travellers avoid as far as possible landing here. If there is no danger there

is no convenience, but, instead, much annoyance and discomfort to be put up with on landing. The absence of any light on the breastivork, and of any authorised officer to take charge of luggage, show a neglect of harbor administration not calculated to raise the character of the port. When the passengers from the Manapouri landed on Saturday it Avas quite dark, and their packages and luggage Avere thrown on the ivharf to be claimed as best they might by the light of cab lamps and the aid of Inciter matches. If it had been pouring with rain there was no cover to seek, and in the wet, darkness, and mud, the discomfort and the risk of the loss of luggage would have been vastly increased. Now, all the inconA-enience and discomfort to which inAvard and outward passengers are subject could be avoided by the clearing out of the Iron Pot. If this needed work were done the steam launch Boojum could receive and discharge passengers in front of the Union Steamship Company's office, from whence both light and attention could be obtained. In the estimation of some it may appear the reverse of important to proA'ide for the comfort of travellers to and from this port, but it should be remembered that everyone Ai'ho lands or leaves here under difficulties and discomfort has a bad opinion of tho place indelibly engraved on his mind. There are probably hundreds of people in New Zealand who have receiA'cd such an impression of this port cither from actual experience or hear-say. All this tends to do the tOAVii more or less harm, and if it be in the power of the Harbor Board to remove the causes lying* at the bottom of the complaints of travellers no time should be lost in so doing.