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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 265, 20 October 1884, Page 2

The following is an extract from a private letter dated the 17th instant received by Captain Porter this morning from a friend in Wellington, with reference to the Gisborne Harbor Bill. “ The Harbor Bill is now reported to the Legislative Council having passed successfully through the Local Bills Committee. The Bill passed the House of Representatives in a very impractical form. Sir George Grey found it hopeless to persist with the Bill in its then form, owing to the careless drafting which made no provision for the necessary machinery to carry out the provisions of the Bill. After waiting till it was too late to alter it in the House of Representatives hoping to get Mr. Rees to re-draft the Bill, Sir George and Mr. Cumin of the Solicitor-Gene-ral’s office, drafted the necessary clauses which were brought before the Local Bills Committee, who have adopted and improved the clauses. Sir George Grey prepared and recommended that the Bill may pass in its improved form. . . . The Committee has

practically remedied most of the blots which appeared in the Bill, and I hope it may prove workable, as it is owing to errors in the notices prior to the bill coming here, the endowment has necessarily been cut down to 40,000 odd acres. This was past mending before I saw or heard of the bill. The Napier Harbor Bill has had to be made much as the Gisborne one, and in Committee the two bills shall be so altered as to be made identical in their machinery.” Sir George Whitmore, who has taken a great interest in having the Gisborne Harbor Bill passed into law, has been ceaseless in his endeavors in that direction.