THE PROSPECTS OF WANGANUI.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5256, 28 January 1878, Page 3

THE PROSPECTS OF WANGANUI.

(From the special reporter ot the Hawke's Bay Herald.) Wanganui has got its harbor endowment this year, and is going in for an expenditure of between £20,000 and £30,000 on harbor improvements in the meantime, with no doubt more to follow. It is not at or near the mouth of the river that the principal improvements are required. The bar, indeed, has ordinarily from fourteen to sixteen feet of water on it. The town, I should have mentioned, is about three miles from the mouth of the river, and just below it the latter widens out and spreads over the sandy flats. There is the mischief. The great necessity is to deepen it at that point. If the town had been built a mile or two nearer the mouth of the river, there would have been no need for the present works. The prevalence of sand, however, would not have permitted this. The Harbor Board have got what they think the best advice obtainable in the colony as to the best method of narrowing the channel, and the works are now in hand. Bet us hope they may succeed. The plan adopted is to lay down stones on each side of the river, so as to form a protection to the bank. A good many practical people, however, thiuk that if once the stones are laid down in the shifting sand that is the last that will be seen of them ; and after our Napier experience, I should feel disposed to pay some deference to the views of practical men on marine questions, even when they vary from those of engineers. It rows of stakes had been driven in, and the space between filled with willow branches or manuka scrub, after the fashion of the groins that are being made at Eedclyffe, a better result might probably have been looked for, and with less outlay. The channel of the Mississippi has been successfully narrowed by works of this description. The bridge over the river is one ot the great engineering works of the colony. It is the property of the Harbor Board, having been purchased by them from the Government for the sum of £30,000. They would probably have done better to let the Government keep it. Tolls are charged on a scale similar to those charged at the tollgates in this province; also a penny from foot passengers each way, a vexatious impost which bears hardly on the poor settlers on the southern bank, and ought as soon as possible to be done away with. The tollgate lets at present for £2OOO per annum, and as the annual charge for interest only amounts to £I6OO, a considerable sum has already accrued, which will go in reduction ot the debt. The opening of the railway, however, may cut into the returns more or less. The outlook for Wanganui in the immediate future ia good—in the more distant future, not altogether unclouded. The railway, now open —I suppose I may say—to Marton, about thirty miles inland, and within two or three months to be opened to Feilding, where it will meet the Foxton lino, should do a great deal to increase its prosperity. Looking at the matter from a newspaper owner’s point of view—the Wanganui Chronicle should reach Fielding as early in the day as the Hawke's Bay Herald reaches Waipukurau, and will reach Palmerston a little later. If the proprietary are equal to the occasion, this should be the making of their journal. I suppose other trades in Wanganui will benefit similarly, though it does not come so easily to me to explain precisely the manner in which it will affect them. A railway is being constructed in a northerly direction also, and the works are well advanced some ten miles out from the port. When even its first stages are open for traffic the benefit to the town will, no doubt, be considerable, On the other hand, Wanganui has a good many formidable rivals. It has much more to dread from the rivalry ofWellington than we have, being situated so much nearer to it. The project for connecting Wellington with Foxton by rail does not appear to meet with enthusiastic favor from the inhabitants. The town has also a rival to the south in Foxton itself, which has its harbor endowments and its harbor works either in progress or in contemplation ; and to the north, in Carlyle, the metropolis of the Patea District, a very promising place. It rejoices in a bi-weekly newspaper, the Patea Mail, planted in the teeth of the Wanganui newspapers by a fiend in human form, who makes a business of that sort of thing, starting newspapers in country townships, and then selling or leasing them. He recently got bitten, I heard, with thanks unfeigned, in some speculation of the kind in the Middle Island. Let us hope it may turn him from the errors of his ways. He had a look at Hawke’s Bay not long ago, I believe, but saw no scope for his enterprise there. The ground was too well occupied. Patea has its harbor works projects also, and has obtained the services of an engineer, who is said to be a rising man. The people in that part of the country are in high feather about the prospects of their port. They hope shortly to leave Wanganui itself in the shade.