Preface

ome three years ago the writer was led into a consideration of the subject to which the following pages are devoted, from a profound sense of the injury to the trade and manufactures of Dunedin, which the enormous outlay upon, the Upper Harbor entailed, by rates and dues on shipping and commerce : a taxation rendered necessary by the large amount required annually to provide interest on borrowed money, and which appeared likely to be indefinitely increased by the proposal to deal with the Bar by means of gigantic engineering works, which must cost hundreds of trousands of pound,. and might necessitate the expenditure of £1,000,000

The ease with which money could be borrwed has proved a curse rather than a blessing, and may possibly be disastrous. My feeling was, and is, that if thrown entirely on our own resources, such difficulties, as present themselves in this case, would soon be overcome.

The following arguments originally appeared piecemeal, in the shape of letters, to the Otago Daily Times, and are now gathered together in a more compact form; an endeavour being made to examine and discuss the subject in a more thorough manner than was then possible. My days being fully occupied, this pamphlet has been written solely during hours stolen from the night, so the reader is asked to deal gently with the many errors of composition, which, no doubt, are palpable enough; acknowledging that from a literary stand point, it is poor indeed; the argument and reasoning advanced are left to stand or fall on their merits, so far only as they are sound and truthful may they find favor.

"There is a success more disheartening than failure." When the application of water under pressure (which I have termed "Submarine Sluicing") to remove the Bar first occured to me, it seemed as if it only required to be made known, for all men to see at once what a simple and easy method it provided, for opening wide and deep the water entrance to our Port. I know better now—Dunedin will not be the first as she might have been, to avail herself of its wondrous powers, thereby making her Port second to none in the Colony for safety of access.

The work bestowed on this subject has been a labor of love; could I have succeeded in doing some small good to the City, which has been my home during nearly a quarter of a century, I should have felt more than repaid.