NEW PLYMOUTH HARBOUR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 19 June 1907, Page 4

NEW PLYMOUTH HARBOUR.

To the IXlitor. Sir,—As a new arrival, I was very much interested in the speech of Jir Connett, the chairman of the Harbor Board, :is recently published in your columns. That portion of his remarks in particular, in which a hope is held out iJiat before long a sufficient depth of water will be obtained to admit of cargoes being shipped direct to British ports, struck me as being of the deepest interest, to every resident in Taranaki, whether engaged in business, in farming or in professional pursuits. It have seen enough of this district to assert that there is no question of anything like equal importance to the whole public here—not even the much-discussed Lund Bill. As long ago as prior to the first, settlement being made here by the New Plymouth Company, men of "such grasp of mind as Col. Wakefield and Dr Dieffenbach were obliged to admit that Taranaki was only prevented from ranking as superlatively fitted for European settlement by its lack of a good harbor. Col. Wakefield, in a report dited December 22nd, 18-40, savs: "Taranaki . . . has but one disadvantage: it has no harbor Considering the general climate and fertile soil, the v:ist space of easily-avail-able territory, the land communication with numerous settlements . . {ring, in fact, that the only obstacle to the rapid use of settlement there is the inconvenience to large ships from Europe, which might be [remedied by a breakwater or mole connecting the largest island with tne main—a work infinitely less formidable than that which in modern times has made the name of our modern Plymouth familiar to the world—l cannot but recommend Taranaki as the most eligible place for the settlement of her offspring." Such was the opinion of one of the foremost men among the noble band of Britons who did so much in the formation of Greater Britain two generations ago. His words may now be taken as prophetic. In that day the vessels which traded to the Antipodes were only only of a few hundred tons burden. Our generation has become familiar with oce.ui monsters of ten, twenty, and thirty times the size of the first vessel belonging to the New Zealand Company which cast anchor off the Sugarloaves, and therefore Colonel Wakefield's description has to he modified to suit the latter-day vessels. Instead of the toy of 400 tons we have to deal with steamers with twin screws, triple expansion engines, and of 12,000 tons burden, and drawing 26ft of water. On the other hand, we are familiar with the Hercules class of dredges with a capacity of deepening hariiors that had never been imagined in 1840. Such ports as Glasgow, where I have seen the bottom of a mere creek at low water, and which is now in consequence of a large but. judicious expenditure, the second port in the Empire, teach us what we can do if only we have the requisite pluck- There is no reason why those huge leviathans of the deep, which I have seen inside Plymouth bteakwater, should not in a very few years be inside that of New Plymouth. Should we have the enterprise as a community to carry out these works at once, I predict that Taranaki would in a few years become not only the most prosperous province in e\v Zetland, but in all probability the most prosperous in all the British Empire. A iairly intimate acquaintance with the agricultural districts of the Old Country and those of the English-speaking portions of the Empire in Canada and and Some knowledge of Africa, have impressed me with the belief that none of theni excel and few m all respect equal, as a seat for a numerous and well-to-do agricultural population, that of which New Plymouth is the natural port. 1 can conceive of nothing—not even the "striking oil"—which would so enhance the value of all property, city, suburban and country as would the deepening of the port so as to admit of the berthing and loading of large ocean-going steamers here.. In this way we may make good the words of Mr Wooleombe at the farewell dinner to some of the emigrants in 1841 and "render New Plymouth as celebrated a-s any part of the United States." Any small individual outlay that will have to be made in the way of interest on an adequate loan for this purpose would soon be repaid a hundredfold. The sooner the people of Taranaki take up this matter in a thorough going way, the Sooner will the advancement and welfare of the district be assured.—l am, etc..