Napier Harbor.

Patea Mail, 21 July 1882, Page 4

Napier Harbor.

. A public meeting to consider the harbor question has been held at Napier. The Mercury puts the matter thus : “ Although there was no direct vote of censure passed on the Harbor Board at the public meeting, the fact of a meeting being held on the subject of the harbor carries with it sufficient censure. If the Board had been doing its duty in the opinion of the public—and the public are quite as good judges of this matter as the members of the Harhor Board—no meeting would have been called. It was owing to a wide-spread belief that the Board was not loyal to its duties, alive <o its responsibilities, or zealous in the discharge of its functions, that the people people deemed it necessary to consider the situation of affairs.” More general remarks follow, and the writer proceeds, “ While we have been frightened into inertness by dismal croakings over imaginary difficulties, other places have been spurred into action by the very existence of obstacles to be overcome. While men, who ought to have led the way, were whinig out, “ Where is the money to come from,” the commercial classes of other places showed how it could be got. Hence Napier has stood still.

. . . It has been the misfortune of Hawke’s Bay that at the head of its affairs there has been no such master-mind as a Williamson as at Auckland, a Featherston as at Wellington, a Moorhouse as at Canterbury, a Macandrew as at Otago. We have been too content to let things take their course to care to do otherwise than to submit to mismanagement, to apathy, to inaction.” At the public meeting the first resolution passed was —“That this meeting recognises the importance of obtaining an efficient harbor for the port of Napier.” This involved the question of whether the present harbor was sufficient for the requirements of the place; and the mover said the great majority of the residents of both Napier and the country districts believed that the money already spent on harbor works had not been spent to advantage. During the last nine years the trade of the district had increased so largely that the present works were found to be inadequate to requirements, and the commercial interests of the town and district must suffer if some decided action was not taken to procure the accomodation needed. The seconder of the motion said, Even if £300,000 had to be borrowed, the trade of Hawke’s Bay could well bear the burden, and all who realised the great importance of the question would join in the movement for obtaining a harbor.

TOWN AND COUNBRY. Mr Blythe moved “ That this meeting recognising the interests that ex ; st between town and country in the matter of harbor accommodation, looks confidently to the country districts for their beauy co-opera-tion with a view to supplying a port suitable for the requirements of the district.” The question, he said,. was really a country one, and would benefit the inland residents more than those of the town. The townspeople were simply the servants of the country residents, and acted in the capacity of receiving, distributing, and despatching agents to the latter. There was no producers in the town —at any rate there was nothing manufactured for export to other places. A good harbor was therefore required in order that the town might be able to serve the country better, and provide an outlet for its p;oducts. He believed it was quite possible to overcome all the difficulties that had been suggested if the town and country only pulled together. Mr Holder in seconding remarked that the country could exist without the town, but the town could not exist without the country. The country, however, required matter ofprovidiug efficient harbor accoman outlet for its produce, and it was only meet and proper that coutry settlers should extend their cordial co-operation in the modation.

Resolution was passed urging the Harbor Board to invite competitive designs with a view to procuring a harbor suitable for the necessities of the district. The resolutions to be sent to the Harbor Board, to show that body that the feeling respecting the necessity of a harbor for Napier was not dead yet within the townspeople. It was only right to appeal to the Board in the first instance, and endeavour if possible to rouse its members to some little feeling of patriotism for the district in which they lived.