The Committee appointed by the Public Meeting held on 4th September 1873 having now completed their investigations, beg to lay before the public the results. In doing so they would remind the public that they printed and circulated a preliminary Report, along with the late Mr. Balfour's Reports and Plan, and stated their conviction that the proposal to bring every steamer and ship that enters Otago Heads up to Dunedin to load and discharge was not only desirable and practicable, but can be accomplished at a cost remarkably small as compared with the immense advantages to be derived from it, and the profits, direct and indirect, which will accrue to the whole Province by its accomplishment. Further investigations and careful study have only tended to confirm this conviction; to such a degree, in fact, that they unhesitatingly give it as their opinion that no more urgent and advantageous public work could be undertaken at the present moment by the Government, nor one in the benefits of which all parts of the Province, north and south, and all classes of industries would more generally or beneficially participate.

Immediately after the publication of the above Reports, steps were taken to obtain from the Civil Engineers resident here Reports upon the matter. The Reports of Messrs. J. T. Thomson, Blair, M'Gregor, and Barr are hereto appended, and the Committee have to record their gratitude to these gentlemen for the liberal manner in which they have placed their professional knowledge at the service of the Committee, without fee or reward of any sort beyond the best thanks of their fellow-citizens, which the Committee feel sure will be unanimously awarded them.