TARANAKI GOVERNMENT GAZETTE.

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also to have our due proportion, but that hitherto we have not, yet, nevertheless I say that were this Province fairly peopled and traversed by a railroad at once, it would, in my opinion, be unable to compete in trade and commerce with other of our colonial districts which have a harbor. However bountiful may be our returns and however varied may be our produce so long as our trade and produce be conveyed at railway cost and we be restricted to one market, or be subjected as we now are to a loss of from £2 to £3 per ton on imports and exports, so long shall we remain as we are—apparently repressed community, excluded, unheeded, and unknown to men of capital and enterprise, and debarred the trade of the world—nothing less than a harbor can obviate this repression. The distance from this place is too great, either to Auckland or Wellington, to meet railway charges on all marketable products and yet compete with people of other districts which have a harbor and who are not restricted to one market but can chose throughout every port in this and the Australian Colonies and other parts of the world where they can best trade and exchange to advantage; hence, from this cause, and from what I have stated, do what you will, people the district as you may, let the resources of the country be developed as much as you like, yet, nevertheless, we cannot thrive as this “garden Province” warrants we ought to do, and why? because we have not a harbor.

To me it is a source of anxiety that the good people of this Province have through from voyaging, and seeing for themselves other parts of the world, in order that they might know from observation and comparison, that the innate dormant wealth of Taranaki requires but little beyond a combined effort on their part to bring that wealth into use and raise this Province to a position second to no other in New Zealand.

The geographical position of this place in regard to inter-colonial trade and the special trade to be had with the Australian Colonies is most commanding, which together with the advantages we possess in soil, wood, water, water-power, and minerals, combined with salubrity of climate and beauty of scenery are such that one cannot but express surprise that our great desideratum should have been neglected for so many years, and persons are naturally led to believe, consequent from such neglect, that a difficulty or unwarrantable cost bars the making of a harbor at Taranaki. So far from this being the case, I know of my own knowledge, from long years of professional experience and observation on this coast regarding the winds, tides, currents, drifts, and sea, &c., that the opposite is the fact; and that great facilities exist for constructing a first-class harbor off the Town of New Plymouth, which would give protection to maritime life and property, and be a means of peopling this Province to a large extent without cost to the Colony.*

Moreover, it would add immensely to our trade, encourage cultivation and factories, enhance the value of land, and increase the revenue. All this could be effected at a cost less than our present restrictive system and boating establishment entails upon the community. In this opinion I am fully borne out in the report made on the New Plymouth harbor question by Messrs. Doyne and Balfour, marine engineers. I will here briefly extract a few statements made in their said report, viz.:

“That, in our opinion, the most suitable site for the proposed harbor is that opposite the Town of New Plymouth.

Our examination of the locality, and the evidence we have collected on the spot, have satisfied us that there are no insurmountable difficulties in the way of constructing a first-class harbor at New Plymouth; but, on the contrary, remarkable and rare facilities which promise to reduce very considerably the cost of the work.

The direct pecuniary loss to the community resulting from the want of a proper harbor is estimated by Mr. Chilman, the Collector of Customs, to have been upwards of £15,000 during the year 1864.”

Looking at this harbor question in a common sense and business point of view, one is naturally led to ask “will it pay” if it be constructed, my reply is that it will pay progressively and immensely, and to those who have travelled and observed and who have knowledge of such matters, I will add that they cannot but have noticed the marvelous activity and busy life which is always to be seen in a harbor community. When the harbor is environed with good land as is New Plymouth, when compared with coastal roadstead towns, where the dull trade is carried on at broken and uncertain intervals attended with risk, loss, and inconvenience.

• I have good and reliable authority for stating that if a harbor were made at Taranaki there are a large number of people and families with means, varying from three or four hundred to three or four thousand pounds each, who would at once come and settle here, but, without a harbor, they will not venture, as they object to the landing as now carried on, and the want of facilities for trading.—Fred. A. Carrington.

The Hon. Julius Vogel, C.M.G., Premier of New Zealand, &c., &c.