The Globe. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 1879.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1608, 16 April 1879, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 1879.

There are tears and lamentations among our Dunedin friends. The steamer Stad Haarlem, an emigrant ship of considerably less than two thousand tons register, bound from England to Port Chalmers, arrived off that port on Sunday afternoon, but was unable to enter. After hanging about until Monday evening, she had to turn tail and proceeded to Port Lyttelton, there to discharge her living freight, amounting to some 600 passengers. The dry facts of the case are simple enough, although the very thought that such could over bo placed upon public record is driving tbo Southern organs very wild. Port Chalmers is, as everybody knows, not a harbour pure and simple. It is a bar harbour ; a totally different thing. Numberless have been the risks and difficulties which have attended its safe navigation over since the first settlors sot foot on Otagonian soil. When the Stad Haarlem made the Otago Heads there was a good deal of sea on the bar, so much so in fact that a small steamer, the Beautiful Star, then outward bound, thought it best to remain at anchor inside. The depth of water on tho bar is, at average high lido, something like 22ft. Tho Stad Haarlem was far from being deep in the water, as she principally carried passengers. At tho time she drew hut 18ft. bin. on an oven keel; certainly not a very groat draught for a steamer of her class. That tho harbour-master of Dunedin should have considered it a very risky thing indeed to allow the vessel to take the bar with suck a small margin as 2ft. Gin. of clear water left under her keel in a heavy rolling surf, may be easily imagined. He vetoed any such attempt being made, notwithstanding tho varied pressure brought to bear upon him by the Dunedin folks. Tho Hon. the Attorney-General oven, eager to snap at the chance of acquiring a little cheap popularity, telegraphing in his Ministerial capacity, urged the harbour-master to send tho steamer in. “In any case,” wired the Hon. Mr. Stout, “ the emigrants should bo landed by tho harbor steamer.” But this evidently could not he done, and tho harbor authorities, doubtless knowing far better what risk might fairly ho ran, ordered the ship on to Lyttelton without any more delay. Tho Dunedin people, we perceive, are now in an agonised state of mind. This last straw they evidently fear has now broken the hack of their unfortunate harbor. They know not which way to turn, and of arguments they can find none to use. The “ Daily Times” blames the weather, anathematises the Harbor Board, and finally giving a heartrending shriek, advocates an immediate expenditure of some £40,000 “to dredge a channel 300 feet wide at the bottom and 6 feet deeper,” through the bar! And yet this is the paper which upon so very many occasions, would assert that Port Chalmers harbor was second to none in the colony! The Dunedin “ Herald,” strange to say, takes quite a different view of tho case. Setting aside all recognised axioms in shipping matters, it makes very short work of tho whole thing. Physical laws aro overruled by our friend in a very few words. Tho “ heave” of a sea-way is not in the least considered by tho “ Herald.” Such technical trifles aro evidently thought unworthy of notice, “If there was twenty-two feet of water and the Stad Haarlem only drew nineteen foot,” argues that vivacious journal. “ Why, then, was sho sent away to gain a harbor of refuge at Lyttelton P” Then follows a tirade of abuse against the whole official world connected with tho harbor. The Dunedin public is gravely informed that “ everybody connected with tho navigation of the Port, from the highest Harbor Board official to tho humblest employe is in a state of chronic nervousness, merging into actual prostration,” as was certainly their painful condition, the “Herald” affirms, when the Stad Haarlem arrived. All this is certainly very childish and irrational, but under existing circumstances, when such a terrible blow has been received by tho commercial interests of Dunedin, ample allowance should bo made for the intemperate manner in which our contemporaries aro trying to wriggle out of their painful position. They evidently forget that Mr. Macandrow, very many years ago, was so convinced of the deficiencies of Dunedin in the matter of its harbor as to strongly advocate tho cutting of a passage through what is called the Ocean Boach. Our Dunedin friends should remember that it is useless to fight against nature, under certain circumstances at least. It was not many days ago that the s.s. Hiuoraoa grazed tho bottom while steaming over the bar at half-tide, and in day light. The master reported the accident in due course. When made aware of the fact, tho Dunedin Harbor Board could scarcely contain themselves. They retorted angrily to tho Marino Department that ‘‘ the master could not have taken tho proper course, and it would ho well if, for the future, ho availed himself of tho services of a pilot.” This answer, it must ho remarked, was given in the face of tho assertion made by the master of tho Hiuemoa that he had carefully held the leading beacons in a lino while crossing tho bar, while his load was going at the time. But what is tho use of arguing tho point any farther ? None, wo are told, aro so blind as those who will not see. Certain it is that the Dunedin people have received a rude shock by this Stad Haarlem episode, and although they will, in all probability, soon recover, it can do no good to shako tho proverbial rod rag while their nerves aro still in a state of tension.