PORT FOR MANAWATU.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1577, 15 July 1916, Page 3

PORT FOR MANAWATU.

OPINIONS OF PALMERSTON

BUSINESS MEN.

Following upon the report of the Royal Commission in connection with the Foxton Harbour and \Vbarf a Manawatu Times reporter visited several prominent business men to get their impressions of the scheme outlined.

All seemed unanimous that a

All seemed unanimous that a deep water harbour at Foxton would give of the whole of the Manawatu district. It was pointed out to the reporter that although freight on heavy goods brought from Wellington by steamer was 16s per ton cheaper than by rail; that it took on the average about ten days to get the goods delivered from Foxton to Palmerston. At the present time the Queen of the South was the biggest boat that could be brought to the wharf, and she was always getting aground. If a harbour could be built to take boats of 12 or 14 feet draught, all heavy freight could be profitably shipped from Wellington and coal could be brought to supply Palmerston and the surrounding country. With a bigger and a better port the railway would be improved automatically. £SOOO was regarded as a very fair price for the wharf.

On the question of the best method of deepening- the harbour the gentlemen interviewed, not being experts, were rather diffident in offering sin opinion. One man, however, took up the attitude that the railway should be continued to the heads, and that the port should be made just inside the bar. He contended that the bends in the river would be sure to cause still water, and that silt would be continually depositing and forming shoals which would entail continual dredging to keep down. If the wharf wore placed half a. mile from the bar the problem of dredging four miles of channel could be dispensed with and the dredging could be confined to the bar and the basin in the vicinity of the wharf.

There was a slight difference of opinion over the rating area which would have to be constituted. One group of men advanced the opinion that it should commence at the mouth of the Rangitikei and should include the whole of the Pohangina district. The boundary should be extended to Woodville and Pahiatua, and thence down to the Manawatu district, making its southernmost boundary Levin. Others interviewed argued that although Pahiatua and Woodville would benefit from the deep water harbour at Foxton, it was not likely that they at first would recognise the benefit, and would have to be left out of the rateable area. Great care would have to be exercised in the constitution of the rating area at first. The idea that the scheme was being run for the benefit of the towns must be dispelled. The controlling board would be representative of the whole rating area, and the towns would have the least representation.