HARBOUR BOARD ELECTION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 120, 13 February 1908, Page 9

HARBOUR BOARD ELECTION.

Sir, —Your correspondent, Mr. Jonas, takes exception to the wording of my letter, hut you will notico, however, that he pusses over the facts and tries to eloud the issue. ■ The question ia the port charges at Wcllingon—not the price of water ; not the price of baling wool; nor the cost of storage of skins. Any steainer.can cotno into :Wellington harbour and hot buy water or pay storage or bale wool, and .yet handle many thousands of tons of cargo. The question, sir, is the port charges, or the charges which a steamer must pay at any port, and those, are, as I have already shown,.- about IB per cent, of the Harbour Hoard's gross inebnie. lii the good old'(lay 3 that I have told you of, when the llotomalmna could do a day's work for the extra cost on a deck cabin to Lvttelton (55.), and the Aorerc could do a couple of trips for the prico of * toll in a cab going down the wharf, it was necessary to show'somehow,'.or anyhow, that the ships wore paying something approaching- a fair share of the charges, and a statement was made out, dragging in such extraneous mat-

ters as storage,; pressing, -water supply, cranage, hydraulic work, wool examination, J etc., etc., paid ljy the ships, and this has , beon preserved down even unto this day. For | instance, in the > current .'statistics appear such items as wool and skin pressing £9198, and water supply £6938, special services quito outsido ordinary port charges. To understand this question, you should know, sir, as Mr. Jones and Mr. Shipping do, that at the othoj 1 ports the Harbour Board, docs none things, each of the companies doing it themselves or paying a public storekeeper. ; i, ■ Tho various companies in May last had the opportunity to return to the state of blessedness which prevails in Auckland, Lyttelton, and Dunediu, to lenable them to reduce the • charges and handle their ships quicker and cheaper; but when I moved in*this direction the whole fifteen.companies and agents signed a letter, saying it would not suit them for Wellington to be like Auckland, Lyttelton and Punndin. 1 . * . ■ I happen to; have the figures for 1905 for' tho various companies trading to Wellington. Tho Union Steam Ship Company paid for . pilotage, port charges, . and harbour 'fees, . £2382, and for Harbour Imnrovemont Rate and berthage (these on the new ratesV £3564, ill all For this they borthed somo forty steamers, which made about 1250. trips to Wellington, at a ; cost, of about £4 a trip. The Hu(|dart-Parker Company paid £769, or an average of about £11 nor trip for each steamer,' These figures include all tho compulsory charges.. If the companies pay more, it is thoir own convenience or.for some special service. . If you will alloy me, sir, I,may go further into this interesting subject later.—l am, etc'., i ■ f ''

' JAS. M'LELLAN. February 12, j■ l •: ,