The Evening Star SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 2832, 16 March 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 1872.

It must be most gratifying to his Honor the Superintendent and the members of the Otago Dock Trust that the construction of the Graving Dock at Port Chalmers is completed. When it was projected there were many who considered the proposal premature, who thought the Province was rushing into expenses not justified by the requirements of the trade, and that so large an undertaking should be deferred until positive evidence of its necessity could be given. But, in cases of this kind, the proof sufficient to convince one man fails to affect another. Natural timidity to embark in an enterprise the immediate success of which seems problematical, deters many from sanctioning investment in public works. They can see that a time may arrive when it may become necessary, but they would have the people wait until certain contingencies occur that must inevitably take place in the course of time, but which they fail to see can be forwarded indefinitely by presenting the fitting inducements. In one respect public works when undertaken by Governments, differ in their social bearings from similar works prosecuted by individuals. Governments can afford to wait the result. Much as it it is to be desired that ample revenue should be derived from investments as soon as possible, the very progress of public works is a social ‘benefit. Companies and individuals derive no collateral advantages from the expenditure going on, but the interests of the Province and country as a whole are greatly advanced. Large works like the Graving Dock give employment to an immense number of men for many years, and cause trades to grow up and prosper which naturally arise out of the character of the material employed and the design and purpose of the work itself. Following the completion of the Graving Dock must be engineering establishments, a gathering together of a number of shipwrights, and, as a consequence, building yards, and kindred trades. It is impossible to say where this chain oi industries ends, so dovetailed are various employments one into another. Co-incident ■with the construction of the Graving Dock, other events have occurred intimately bearing upon the success which is likely to attend it: a new trade of vast importance has opened up, mainly induced by the dock being made, which promises to be even more profitable than its most sanguine advocates supposed. The San Francisco steamers are uniting New Zealand with Northern America, and the proprietors are becoming aware of the advantages of the connection. The inhabitants of the Port have felt the imuulse of trade, property has become much more valuable, and they, too, have felt the necessity for rendering the place attractive to ship owners, although they have been somewhat tardy in their

work. Their most strenuous efforts should now be directed to making Port Chalmers the port of the Southern hemisphere. Up to this time it has been remarkable for delay in loading, and unloading vessels, and for expense in their obtaining supplies of water and ballast and coals. The utmost exertion of the people of the Port should be directed to cheapening necessaries, and obviating delay. It is bad policy to get as much out of ship owners as can possibly be squeezed. It is a mere development of old fogeyism. To keep a ship in port a month where a week will do, is to drive the trade to a more commodious port, and to cause consumers of imports to pay an additional price for them. It thus acts as a deterrent to trade rather than an encouragement to it. So nunifest has this become in many parts of the world, that the question is raised in some places, whether it is not wiser on the part of the inhabitants of a sea-port, to relieve vessels visiting it of all port charges, and pay the cost by a City rating, in order that there may be every inducement to the development of trade. This, in a place of limited population, like Port Chalmers, would perhaps be premature, but as a corollary to the Graving Dock, and the Kail way Jetty, shortly to be constructed, the next step is to open up railway communication with a field of first-class coal, so that the large steamers that will now begin to make Port Chalmers the terminus to their voyages, shall be supplied on the best possible terms. Moreover, such a plan, if possible, would throw a vast amount of trade into Port Chalmers that is now monopolised by Newcastle. Otago has vast advantages above the Grey River—the port where the best coal is known to be. Our chief concern ought to be to institute a searching investigation into the nature of our coal deposits and the means of bringing them abundantly and cheaply to the port. For coal there is a steadily increasing demand throughout the Southern hemisphere, .which might be indefinitely increased.