There is one question of considerable importance that is sure to come before the Assembly during next session— viz., that of Harbour works. Various places on the coast are likely to com pete for the honour and glory of mak ing a harbour where Nature has not made one already. Oamaru has taken the lead in some pretty extensive works, which will yet take several years to complete, and the cost of which, will not be less than a hundred to a hundred and twenty thousand pounds* Timaru is not content with so insignifi cant an expenditure, and goes in for a work to cost not less than a quarter of a millien. Then Hawke's Bay and Ta ranaki have their requirements ; and if any large coal trade is to be done at all some heavy works will have to be ex* ecuted on the West Coast, where we have the black diamonds in abundance, but most insufficient means of getting them shipped in Urge quantities. Of all claims for Colonial assistance this last is probably the best. Nothing but shipping facilities can make our splendid coal resources fully available for an export trade, and from the posi* tion of the chief mines no railway can connect them with an established port except at immense cost, and a rate of carriage which would be practically prohibitory — the least distance being some 240 miles. But the question Avill not be looked at from a purely Colonial point of view; but rather upon the principle that one place has as much right as another to consideration, and if one gets a harbour, another must. The chief Ports of the Middle Island, Dunedin and Lyttelton, are indeed being greatly improved, and year by year are being brought by rail into closer contact with the country dis tricts, and with each other; but in stead of concentrating all the shipping trade in these central harbours, the de termination seems to be to make two or three more. We must say that we admire the enterprise of the people of Oamaru and Timaru in push ing on such projects with so much energy, and we will freely admit that the osly example yet before us of any present results, that of Oamaru, is

OTAGO WITNESS.
