THE WRIGHT VIEW OF NEW PLYMOUTH HARBOR.

Patea Mail, 21 July 1881, Page 3

THE WRIGHT VIEW OF NEW PLYMOUTH HARBOR.

Mr Wright, in moving in the Assembly for a committee of Inquiry re New Plymouth Harbor, reviewed the histojy of the Board in order to show its present position and said, the first reports of any importance on this subject wore those prepared by Messrs Doyne and Balfour in 1805 and 1867. These gentlemen estimated the cost of a good harbor at £750,000, but they prudently recommended the construction of one of much smaller dimensions at a cost of £300,000. They recommended also that confiscated lands to the value of £350,000 should be set aside as security for a loan of that amount. No action was taken upon these reports. The population of the district was very small, hung at that time only 4,374, and probably the people were somewhat staggered at the magnitude of the work. However, the question slumbered for a considerable time. In 1870 the Superintendent of Taranaki made an appeal to this House, and was evidently prepared to accept a harbor of very much smaller dimensions than was originally contemplated. He came to the Assembly with a demand for a sum of £45,000. He was directed by the House to have suitable plans and specifications prepared to show what he was going to do with this money ; and in the following year the plans were sent to the Colonial Secretary, with a petition from the Provincial Council of Taranaki that a sum should be set aside out of the public works loan of 1870, sufficient to defray the cost of the work, which, as he had stated, was set down at the very modest sum of £45,000. The amount asked for was about £lO per head of the population, and probably represented what the inhabitants of Taranaki considered was about their share of the public works loan raised in 1870. This money was not granted ; but, on the 14th November of the same year, the Ministry proposed to grant confiscated land to the value of £45*000, instead of < money, and it was arranged that lire Native Minister should mark out a suitable block of land as an endowment. That gentleman proceeded to do so in .February, 1872, when it was discovered that there was. not enough confiscated land for the purpose* The late-Sir Donald McLean in explaining the matter to the House afterwards, said that the confiscation.was upon paper only, that the so-called confiscated land was not theirs to deal with, and that the work, if prosecuted, imxst .be a charge upon the ordinary land revenue of the province. Sir Julius Vagel suggested that a Bill should be brought in to endpw the Harbor Board with one-fourth of the ordinary land revenue of the province. The bill was not passed that session, 1873 ; hut in 1874 a bill was duly passed authorizing the Provincial Government to borrow—not £45,000, with which they were content in 1871, hut—£3so,ooo. The population was increasing, being now, in 1874,5,465 ; and, with this increase, the old ambition to spend £350,000 was revived. The Hon. Mr Hart, in advocating t.he Bill in the Legislative Council, in the session of 1874, stated the intention was to appropriate the one-fourth of the Land Fund of the province, and let it accumulate as a fund for the construction of the harbor. The Land Fund at that period was only nominal, being £lll 13s lid for 1874—that was exclusive of guaranteed Land Fund amounting to £1687 10s. But it did not appear to have accumulated fast enough for the purposes of this Harbor Board, They were authorized to mortgage the land, but the proposal was beset with so many difficulties that the Bank of New Zealand would not assist the Board,. and nothing was done for two or three years. In 1877 a further appeal was made to the House, and an Act was passed empowering the Harbor Board to raise the sum of £200,000 upon 6 per cent, debentures. . So that at last, after twelve years of agitation, the Board was in a position to commence operations and proceed with the work* But now fresh engineering advice was required. Messrs Doyne and Balfour had reported in 1865, Messrs Carruthers and. Blackett in 1875, and §ir John Coode was called in and repotted in February 1879. But, so far from being satisfied with any of; these reports, the New Plymouth Harbor Board appointed a gentleman Without previous, experience in marine engineering, and allowed him to “ improve ” upon Sir John Goode’s plans. Mr Rees was sent Home by the Board, and he. represented to Sir , John Coode that the stone frem Paretutu, which that gentleman, and Messrs. Carruther .and Blackett, before him} had considered hard enough

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■for a breakwater to be constructed of “ pierre perdue ” was unsuited for the construction of a breakwater upon that principle, and Sir John Goode was requested to furnish amended designs for a work in concrete. Then the Board proceeded to work, with this result : that, after expending about £74,000 they were ready to commence the breakwater, and had now dismissed their engineer. The financial position of the Board he gathered to be this ; Their 6 per cent, debentures for £200,000 realised £190,102 7s 3d, the charges for floating the loan amounted to £4,247 7s fid, so that the net proceeds were £186*854 19s 9d. The debentures taken up out of Land Fund amounted to £IO,OOO. They had on deposit at the Bank of New Zealand £71,000, at the National Bank £30,000* and to credit of current account at. the Bank of New Zealand £10,177 13s lOd: they therefore had altogether a cash credit of £111,177 13s lOd; and ho observed by the last halfyearly report that they said they had no liabilities beyond the current expenses. The difEereince between tlieir present cash credit and the net proceeds of the loan was £76,677. That appeared to be the amount of money which they had got rid of in preparations for the undertaking. When he said “preparations” he ought perhaps to mention that they had a large amount of plant, including locomotives and a steam-launch, and had laid down tramways; They- had commenced the. work, and, he believed, carried it to somewhere between high and low water ; but the main work itself—that requiring the heavy concrete blocks—was practically not commenced. Now as to the cost of the proposed harbor. Sir John Goode estimated that part of the breakwater described as the Western Breakwater at £460,100, a jetty at £34,500, another jetty L at £16,480, and the Eastern Breakwater at * £427,700. So that Sir John Goode’s total estimate for this work complete was £928,730. That was on the assumption that the rock obtainable from Paretutu, which the engineer referred to in his report as “hard trachyte porphyry,” would bo i suitable for the purpose. What the total expenditure would be now that they had to fall back upon concrete blocks he had not yet been able to ascertain. That being the estimate for this work, honorable members could form a very shrewd guess as to what the ultimate cost would be, because they were nil sufficiently well versed in marine engineering to know that the'ultimate cost of a work of this'description was greatly in excess of the original estimate. Well, then, Sir John Goode proceeded to state that a certain portion of the Western Breakwater, 1,920 feet in lengtli, might be constructed for a sum of £197,240 ; but if-it stopped at that point, with a jetty on line No. 3, the depth alongside would be only 13 to 14 feet at spring tidfes, and the accommodation afforded would be limited. Now, they might fairly ask, what would be the accommodation provided, when nearly one-half the money had been already disbursed in plant and in making preparations for the work? Aiid if 13 or 14 feet of water was only to be obtained for the expenditure of £197,240, what depth could really be obtained for the expenditure of £lll,OOO, the balance available ? But to provide for the loan of even this limited accommodation the Board was dependent, not upon' what Sir Donald McLean termed “ the general land revenue of the district,” but upon the 25 per cent, of the proceeds of the Waimate Plains, which had cost the colony so much to acquire. They would find from the statistics published in the year 1877 that the total area of Taranaki was 2,290,000 acres. The area disposed of since’ the foundation of the colony was, in 1877, 76,499 acres, and the balance ih the hands of the Government for disposal, exclusive of confiscated land, was 75,000 acres. Well, 25 per cent, of the 75,000 acres, at the selling price of 30s per acre, would give £28,125 as the value of the Harbor Board’s endowment—that was, if they were to excliide the Waimate Plains and the lands still in the hands of the natives. The present rating powers of the Board did not appear sufficient to meet the case. The'cbarge for interest and sinking fund was £14,000 per annum, less £7OO to their credit for £IO,OOO of debentures already redeemed: A rate of Is in the pound on the rateable value of the district, Which he was informed was £70,000, would' produce only £3,500 to meet the annual charge of £14,000, less the £7OO referred to? Th 6 motion for a committee was carried. The late engineer, Mr Rees, and other local witnesses have been summoned to give evidence.