PATEA MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 1880. CROSSING THE BAR.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 533, 15 June 1880, Page 2

PATEA MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 1880. CROSSING THE BAR .

The Harbor of Pa tea is vindicating itself. A feat was performed on Saturday which demonstrates with remarkable force that the Patea bar may be crossed in a full gale from the prevailing quarter, without serious risk. Such a thing would have been impossible a year ago. It would have been simply fatal. Now the feat is merely a question of pluck, the risk being nominal. The Awaroa schooner, drawing . 7\ feet, and com-

manded by Captain Grigor, entered the river at one o’clock on Saturday, during the heaviest gale we have had this winter. The gale was from the northwest, the prevailing quarter; and the new course which tiie river now takes, since the breakwater operated to divert the current in the desired direction, is exactly favourable to the entrance of ships during the heaviest weather. They come end on, with the breakers tilting the hull forward, without throwing it out of the direct course of the channel. The theory on which the old coarse of the channel was diverted and turned in a nearly opposite direction, is a complete success in practice. Sir John Coode’s advice has been the salvation of Patea as a port. Wc have not to lament mistakes, nor to bemoan the expenditure of many thousands upon experimental “ improvements” which in other cases have improved a-river out of existence. Our improvements speak for themselves. We have done well so far: help us to do better, by completing the harbor scheme which is so demonstrably successful as far as it has gone;. These harbor works were commenced just two years ago, yesterday' being' the anniversary of laying the first stone of the breakwater. The sum expended is abont £6OOO. With that trifling outlay, that “ fleabite ” as compared with the £60,000 sunk in the Wanganui, and the £30,000 dropt into the sea at New Plymouth, this Patea harbor has been made practicable for the entrance of craft during the heaviest gale blowing from the usual quarter. Steamers which are now blocked put of Wanganni can cross this bar; and the Patea bar is growing beautifully less week by week, as the Harbor Master reported yesterday at the Board’s rrieeting. ; .The first condition for a port being a success is that it shall be safely, accessible during, the prevailing wind;. There the Patea river is conspicuously successful. It was no idle boast, as we can now see, when the-chairman" whp laid the foundation stone of the breakwater said : Within two years fromthe present time, this port will be. accessible to intercolonial steamers.” • And jnst within the ! two years a vessel laden with 45,000 feet of timber has crossed ; the bar in a strong gale.

■RAILWAY: CONTRACT, Tenders for the Carlyle Railway Station, for the Bridge, the wharf and; half a mile of permanent way, are now called for. Plans and specifications • are on view at Carlyle, and (this being a large contract) at the principal towns in the colony. All these works are included in the one contract—why ? The Bridge might well have been let separately: it is to be a wooden structure, spanning the river at the bend ; about half a mile above the- port. Prom thence to' the Station site, a half-mile .length of permanent way, with two creeks to span, might have formed a .separate tender. The* Wharf "along the swamp frontage ot the river, will . important jvork, with the Station adjacent, and these might

have boon contracted for together or separately, and independently of tho other works. The wharf is to be 540 feet long, with a breastwork of wood, a superstructure of earthwork, and a platform off heavy planking. Tho policy, if it be a deliberate policy, of putting all these .works into one contract, and prohibiting sectional tendering, is severely objectionable. Why not sot half a dozen contractors to work on several sections, and so give a reasonable opportunity to persons in this district who have not an immense plant of contractors’ machinery for undertaking so big a job as this combined contract must bo ? This is playing'info the hands of groat capitalists. It is deliberately, and unfairly, and stupidly disqualifying; men of moderate means from sharing in the public works of the colony. We have an unbiassed desire’ to support a wise and patriotic Administration, with not the smallest partiality, for party shibboleths—for we hold partizanship to be a disease in politics; yet here is a Government which finds it easier to sot common sense at defiance than to do the colony’s work upon plain business principles. One act of. stupidity seems to begot another. Who and what arc the persons that gave such wretched advice to the Government, or brought such unfair pressure to bear on it ? Who are they?