THE COUNCIL AND THE HARBOR BOARD.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 1, Issue 71, 9 March 1880, Page 4

THE COUNCIL AND THE HARBOR BOARD.

Tho Lyttelton Harbor Board have finally considered the resolutions of the Ashburton County Council and have entered up judgment. That judgment is just as we expected it would be—viz., against any admission of the Ashburton County’s claims to direct representation at the Board. It is satisfactory to note, however, that tho members of the Board are remarkably well pleased with themselves, that they believe they have discharged their duties as no other public body in the Southern hemisphere has discharged its duties, and having done so feel themselves equal to the task of spending all the loan recently secured without any help from outside, and without sharing the honor of doing so with new blood. From the report of the meeting as published in the Christchurch papers, we learn that some members were quite prepared to admit The county of Ashburton to representation at the Board, provided other counties were represented, but perhaps the most sensible suggestion made was that the system of nomination by which members are appointed should cease, and that the Board should be an elective one, with every interest represented. There is altogether too much nomineeism in the public bodies of this colony, and the sooner the broad principle of representation is recognised and acted upon the better. The chief opponents of any change in the constitution of the Harbor Board were tho Chairman (Hon. E. Richardson) and Mr. Murray-Aynesley, the former believing that the construction of the Board being tlie outcome of tho collective wisdom of both houses of Parliament, and he would therefore use his utmost endeavor to oppose any alteration. Mr. Turner, in advocating direct representation, told the Board that as it at present stood it was not alivo to its own interests, inasmuch as it had refused to reduce the wharf charges and expenses while at the same time it claimed to have nominally some thousands of surplus income. We should say the counties who use the Port of Lyttelton as the outlet for their grain have a good case to go to Parliament with for a reconstruction of the Harbor Board on a representation basis.