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sort officially invited to practise on our credulity and torment us with their thousand plans of Harbours of Refuge and Promenade Piers – every plan being warranted to make Hastings an El Dorado and St. Leonards a paradise. A flourishing town is a good focus for enterprise of all sorts; and plenty of competent engineers and needy lawyers can be found everywhere to prepare plans, and to support them with plausible talk, when a wealthy borough stands at the back of the costly speculation. We know that the Council has no desire to do aught against the interest of the borough. But we venture to think that before it gave any kind of support – “moral” or otherwise – to outside proposals of this nature, it should be at some pains to find out what the ratepayers of the entire borough really feel about the matter. This task also belongs to the journalist, who, in a sense equally true, represents the wishes and the will of the people, and who, if he believes in his vocation at all, and is not a mere automaton, is bound to give an independent and disinterested opinion on all that vitally concerns his fellow men. The object of what we now have to say on this subject will be to impress the necessity of caution in so important an undertaking as the one which is again coming under discussion. This harbour fever is not chronic. It is of the acute kind and comes quite often enough. The cure for it hitherto has been the prospective bill of costs. On the “exhibition” of this anti-phlogistic, the body corporate has taken fright and got “well” forthwith. The process of blood-letting would be too serious – the doctors couldn’t tell when the flow would cease, and whether the patient would sink under it – and so the said patient has resolved on believing himself healthy, and this faith hath cured the fever.... We are not disposed to discuss any particular plan. We go beyond all plans to the deeper question, Do we want a harbour at all? We have before answered this in the negative; and have been thought by some people cruel, and by others blundering. We trust we are neither; but simply right. Calling names will settle no controversy; but adducing arguments will. When we have asked for these on the pro side, we have had declamation, conjectural statistics or abuse. All this has neither settled the question nor us. We repeat the query – Does the borough need a harbour? or even a fishmarket pier, which, though cheaper, could only collect the dues without giving us the protection of a harbour? The cases in which a harbour here could save life are very rare. They are plentiful in advocates speeches at public meetings and in prospectuses; but very rare, in fact. In rough weather, a ship would, if possible, keep far out in the Channel, and would rather trust herself anywhere than in the bight of a bay, where the missing of a small harbour-mouth would be sure destruction. If a -