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South Canterbury Times, Issue 2131, 21 January 1880, Page 2

Thk Lyttelton Harbor Hoard manages its affairs rather differently from the Otago Board. While the latter has squandered, within a few years, a quarter of a million of money, mined a beautiful hay, and helped to block up the entrance to Port Chalmers, the Lyttelton Board has succeeded in putting its harbor in a throughly solvent and nourishing condition. At its annual meeting the statement of accounts snbmitted'showed that the revenue earned and expenditure incurred during the year, exclusive of amounts chargeable

against the loan- account, werei £34,263 2s I Id, and £23,206 12s (id respectively, halving a balance of £ll ,()•»(» 10s od in favor of the Board. The wharfage receipts were £21,529, and tlio towage £2472. The assets <iro £48,883 (is 4d, The tug accounts showed the satisfactory result that after, paying every expense, even the insurance premium, her services still produced a credit .balance to the Board. These-figures are encouraging as indicating what good management on the part of a Harbor Board may accomplish. The Lyttelton Board has had huge difficulties to contend with, hut it has surmounted them. Unlike the Otago Board, it has not put the cart before the horse by filling in the hay when it should have been clearing the entrance. The .success of the tug is a matter that deserves the attention of the Timaru Harbor Board. A tug steamer for an open roadstead like this, or as an adjunct to other harbor appliances at this port, would he simply invaluable. Besides it might he the means of materially assisting the Board’s revenue. At present we have steamers plying regularly between the ports of Lyttelton and Dunedin, and making a capital harvest out of a traffic that might as well he in the hands of the Harbor Board. We do not ask the members of the Board to go into competition with the Union Steam Shipping Company, hut if they are not shareholders in that gigantic concern, we would suggest (he expediency of extending their Landing Service a few leagues farther and taking the highway between Dunedin and Lyttelton under their own contml. By doing so the members of the Board, would, we think, he conserving the public interests, and for aught we know they would not he injuring their own.