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FOXTON HARBOUR BOARD.

FFOLDING’S ATTITUDE RE SUGGESTED RATING AREA. With a view to ascertaining how Feilding would be affected by the Foxton Harbour Board question, the Star representative sought interviews with leading business men there, and the opinions expressed should give some indication of local feeling on the important subject.

Messrs Bramwell Bros, make extensive use .of the Foxton wharves, increasingly so since the Government took over the Manawatu line. Seen together, the members of the firm stated that they were uot in favour of a rating area including Feilding, because the benefits to be derived by this district would uot justify the payment of a rate. Under present conditions, the wharf is useful as a check on railway freights from Wellington, and as long as there is a harbour there, the district receives some small benefits. But to give the Board power to strke and collect a rate would be a dangerous proceeding. The proposal was to take over the wharves, but if the Board did this, the first thing that would probably be that the wharfage charges would be increased, perhaps not much, but still it would be an increase, and not a decrease. Then, if the Board were to go in for large expenditure in dredging and other works, it would be very improbable that ocean freights would be greatly reduced, even if larger steamers were enabled to come in. Feilding would always have small representation on the Board, and consequently little influence. It might be the policy of other parts of the rating area to expend very large sums of money —perhaps hundreds of thousands of pounds —in making a modern harbour, which would not help Feilding very much, and yet this district would have to contribute to the interest on very large loans. Mr John Cobbe, on being approached by the interviewer, repeated what he had said on previous occasions. When Cr Tolley w r as appointed as the delegate from the Feilding Borough Council to the Harbour Board, Mr (then Cr) Cobbe urged him (Cr Tolley) to oppose the inclusion of Feilding in any rating area. The risk was too great to be played with.

Another prominent business man who makes large use of the Sandon tram and the Foxton harbour stated he was strongly opposed to any rating area, because this district had nothing to gain by it and a good deal to suffer. Even if the Harbour Board took ovei the wharves, the first thing they would do would be to increase the wharfage fees, and that would not assist Feilding residents very much. Then supposing the Board took it in its head to “ improve ” the harbour, hundreds of thousands of pounds might be spent in dredging the river, putting up protective works, etc., and with what result? If the tonnage of the ships coming into the port were largely increased it would not reduce the steamer freights to any appreciable extent —certainly not sufficiently to compensate for a rate. Then there was another point which had to be remembered. The Foxton harbour was used now because the freights on certain goods were lower than those on the railway from Wellington. Supposing the Harbour Board spent large sums and made a general reduction, competing seriously with the railway—which it does not do now —the Government might see fit to reduce railway freights on the Manawatu line from Wellington, run in opposition to the Harbour Board, and leave their extensive works high and dry, as it were. We should be in a nice pickle then with our line harbour and our taxes !

Mr A. T. Spain, Feildiug manager for the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Co., stated to the interviewer that the bulk of the wool from this district went to Wellington via Foxtou, that route being cheaper and sometimes quicker. The coastal boats were well able to handle the wool, and tb n* iv s no desire for extensive improvements at the harbour.

The “ Star,” commenting on the interviews, says inter alia; ‘ ‘ The gentlemen interviewed were chosen on account of their representative character, the value and •weight of their opinions on the question, and because they were in a position to speak from first hand knowledge. It will be seen that the opinions which we expressed on the matter ot rating in an editorial article a week ago have been substantially supported and strengthened by the business men interviewed. The chief points made against the inclusion of Feilding in a rating area—and, in fact, against any rating area at all —are that the harbour is satisfactory enough for our people as it is at present so far as the small coasting steamers are concerned, that expensive works to enable larger vessels to come in would not reduce but rather increase freight charges, that there is no possibility of getting the very large deep-water steamers to make Foxton a port of call, that if the Harbour Board commenced to spend large sums there would be no limit to its schemes, and that if the harbour offered a serious menace to the railway revenue the Government would undercut the rates and leave the Board with fine works and no business to occupy them. Any one ot these objections is deemed strong enough to make the residents of the district hesitate before agreeing to be included in a harbour rating area.”

The Star concludes by stating : “ It is but natural, alter all, that our retailers should be somewhat fearsome regarding the possibilities of extravagant schemes o£ 1. arbour development at Foxton. Tut we think they are short-sighted in that respect. Foxton undoubtedly has a future before it, because it is the seaport for a large and rich area of country, and the natural tendency of the producer, as it is of a river, is to find the sea. It is less than half the distance from Feilding to the seafront at Foxtou than it is to Wellington, and our producers will uot always go the long way round to get an outlet. Every harbour in the making has had to throw many thousands of pounds into the sea —as witness Timaru, Oamaru, Napier, and Gisborne, to quote those which readily come to mind ; but the expense of maintaining an open bar at Foxtou will be less than the expense of guarding shipping against the open sea. As tor the Railway Department freightfighting the Foxtou Board and the tramways, should the latter be extended to Feilding, as one of our merchants says in another column, we think he is conjuring up a ghost. There is no analogy between this case and that of a private rival railway company. The Board, the tramways, and the railways are equally the property of the State, and we think the future will bring these several interests into closer union and sympathy, rather than into opposition, Therefore, whilst Feilding folks are acting with wisdom and foresight in protesting and guarding against undue taxation from this district’s second seaport, we think they will also be acting wisely in keeping in touch with Foxtou and keeping steadily in view the possibility of direct communication by rail with that seaport. For it requires no great stretch of vision to see what close relations will exist between the Feilding district and Foxton during the next quarter of a century.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/MH19110223.2.17

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 958, 23 February 1911, Page 3

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,225

FOXTON HARBOUR BOARD. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 958, 23 February 1911, Page 3

FOXTON HARBOUR BOARD. Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 958, 23 February 1911, Page 3

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