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large ship were in danger such a harbour as Hastings would be likely to have would give small hope of protection, even if the water were not too shallow for her to get in. We believe the fallacious hope of refuge would lead to more accidents, through misplaced confidence, than the present entire absence of such a refuge. Small craft could as easily run to Rye as Hastings, and perhaps would rather do it. The boon to the fishery is of a very doubtful character. At least we have a notion that the fishermen themselves, as a body, do not appreciate it. They would rather regard it as an invasion of the only part of the stade now left them as in any sense their own. Our fishermen’s lives are not lost on this coast; but, far away from home – often in the neighbourhood of harbours. Any refuge of this kind would exact larger dues without giving any commensurate boon... Years ago, when the real harbour controversy raged (all others since have been shams) – real, because got up in Hastings, and not forced upon us by speculators from without – we had no railway accommodation as we have it now. The traffic argument consequently is weaker now than formerly; and cannot prove very influential in the present time, when it so failed in the past. As a pecuniary speculation we believe it would prove to be what in slang phrase is termed “a sell”. And the borough would surely object to an experiment being made by adventurous strangers, the could(sic) of which should fall, in case of failure, upon the ratepayers’ pockets. Let us, at all events, clearly understand before anything is begun who is to pay the piper. As Franklin tells us a man “may too dearly for his whistle” and this is doubly provoking when it happens to be a whistle which one doesn’t particularly want. And why, some will ask, all this effort to paralyse the energy of well-meaning improvers of the borough? Simply because we believe the “improvers” are mistaken, and that their energy might be better directed. These towns have grown and prospered at a rate almost unexampled among watering places. One attraction, possibly, may have been the absence of a harbour. We have offered fine promenades and magnificent houses, with cleanliness and quiet. What other advantages, real or supposed, might have done for the borough, is purely conjectural. We know, as a matter of fact, that the place has thriven, and is thriving still, as it is. Whether it would thrive faster with a harbour than without is a matter of opinion. Our opinion is adverse to the idea; principally because on a part of the coast offering fewer natural advanges(sic) than many others, we believe a harbour at this point would drive away more prosperity of one kind than it would bring of another. Hastings can never exel(sic) as both a harbour town and a first-class watering place. It might add a little to its commercial repute, and detract a great deal from its worth as a visitors resort – it -