MR. WILFORD AND HARBOUR BOARD.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 801, 26 April 1910, Page 6

MR. WILFORD AND HARBOUR BOARD.

THE CANDIDATE IN REPLY. In his address at Kelburne last evening, Mr. Wilford replied, at length to Mr. Crawford's statements, made at Aro Street on Saturday, with. regard to his administration of the Harbour Board. He 6aid that he would deal with the report of those statements as published in The . Dominion, which supported Mr. Crawford against him. "He would demolish the arguments of the newspaper that had expended its vituperation and fury upon him from the beginning of the contest, though "before. that it was very different." The statements of his opponent regarding the Harbour Board were absolutely withont foundation in any shape or form. As.to anonymous letters, they were never'free from -the suspicion that ! perhaps they had been written in the office from which the paper emir nated.

With regard ,to Mr. .Crawford's, statements of Saturday night, he had statements with him, signed by the secretary of the Harbour Board, which proved that all of them were not only wildly extravagant, but absolutely false. He would show what a child in finance Mr. Crawford was. 'His statement as regards the million-loan Bill Was not the gravest part of his misrepresentations. Mr. Crawford had asked: "What.had he (Mr. Wilford) been doing with that money since?" Now that was a plain-.statement. Mr. Crawford said: "Squandering 'it on the dock and other works not at all necessary." He would resign from that contest before the poll if. one penny had ever been borrowed ; under that million-loan Bill up to the. present day.- That was the sort of inan he was fighting. That was the sort of business he.had got to stand in leading articles in The Dominion. Pair fightUiU.wftb dead and gone il such a thing was■ allowed. From .a letter to .him, signed that day by the secretary of the board, Mr. Wilford read: "The millionloan BUI was passed in 1908, and no money has been Taised under it." Mr. Wilford read further from the secretary's letter as follows: "The £250,000 earmarked for the dock was. authorised in the Act of 1902, eight years ago, and is not included iu tho million loan of 1908, under which no money has yet been raised." Mr. Crawford, who said he.was u man of leisure, could easily have learned tho facts from the' board's office, but'he did not take the trouble. The money., under tho 1902 Bill was;earmarked for the dock, and for that alone, and if he (Mr. Wilford) had diverted any other moneys to the dock he could be prosecuted criminally. Mr. Crawford further,said that his mismanagement, had resulted in £17,000 a year being added to the port dues. If not one penny under the Loan "Bill had been spent on tho port where was his coniention? Mr. Crawford further stated that this increase to the dues, together with the £16,000 interest required to be paid on the cost of the dock, meant £33,000 a year, and that this amount during the last two years had been placed upon the people by hira. The statement with regard to the £16,000 interest was as incorrect as every other statement made by Mr. Crawford.. Mr. Wilford again read from tho secretary's letter as follows: "The amount spent on the' dock to date does not exceed £33,000." They could work out for themselves the interest on £33,000 at U per cent. When Mr. Crawford said that it was £16,000' in two years he was "out" to the extent of £14,500, and when lie said that the £17,000 for port dues was to help pay for the money spent on the dock arid other works out of the loan he was tolling .'them what was absolutely incorrect and untrue. Mr. AVilford read from the secretary's letter to confirm his statement that the £17,000 in extra charges was put on to make up for the fall in imports which took place last year. Mr. Crawford also made out that the board had practically two millions of liabilities. The secretary's letter- was again quoted to the following effect: "The whole' indebtedness of the board to date on all loans actually raised from the commencement of the board in 1879 amounts to £718,000." In. the two years of his'"chairmanship,'not one penny extra charge was put on, and the £33,000 a year spoken ,of by Mr. Crawford had never-existed, and did not exist to-day. Mr. Wilford then referred to the leading article in yesterday's Dominion referring to his candidature, and entitled "The Ethics of Public Life." "The least Tub Dominion says about the ethics of public life," he said, "in my opinion, the better it would be for The Dominion. If the ethics of public life are to print statements which are based on no foundation, and of which the shortest inquiry would elicit the complete refuta■titm, then I don't take much notice of The Dominion's opinion on the ethics of public life." ;

[We have found it necessary on a previous occasion to direct attention to the manner in which Mr. Wilford has attempted to> confuse reports in our columns with the opinions of the paper. We had hoped, that this would not occur again, yet in his speech last evening he attempted to saddle us with the responsibility for statements made by Mr. Crawford in his election addresses and reported by us. He might, with equal fairness, have charged us with supporting his own election views merely because we reported them. Mr. Wilford appears also to have suggested that his views on some questions have not been fairly reported in our columns. Wo challenge him to give a single instance in which this has happened. Of course he cannot do so. . We challenge him also to show where The Dominion referred in its leading columns to any borrowing carried out under the million-loan Bill. Again, he cannot do so. Mr. Wilford is entitled to make all the capital he can out of the errors of his opponents; but wild and indiscriminate'' charges are not likely to do him any service with tho thinking portion of the community. If he has a good case there is no occasion for a tirade of abuse.]

Mr. Crawford said last night that he was strongly in sympathy with public libraries, and, within reasonable financial bounds, he wonld be in favour of tho extension of the , libraries to different parts of the city, so as to make them as convenient as possible for tlie citizens. The Mavor' and council should take an interest 'in helping men to rise in life by eacQurasing ttom to shuiT-

THE TAIL AND THE DOG

MEUMAR'S BAEGAIN. Mr. Crawford last night added a little moro to the. chapter of local history which has come to be entitled "The Miramar, Tail and the Harbour Board Dog." After again relating that the signature of the Miramar borough representatives was obtained to the agreement with the Harbour Board by showing them only one of the clauses which affected the borough, tho candidate went on to deal with the letter from Mr. P. G. Boltou as read, by Mr. Wilford at his last meeting. He said that Mr. Bolton had written his letter when ho was about to go sway for a holiday, and he must have w.fitten l it in a hurry without due care. The last serite'ifee of it was as follows: "The result o*f '{Be' Wra's determiiW3 dt<;t*ai> fr.,, thrft f»«' -MivaiMtf PW6*«H Gffiiflffl itM fe jfcy £3(m' i* (Ust, and fiSfltf WSf MMB v/Sfffl 01 BM; ,#«*,- Wit for the attitude of you, myself,- SficT certain other members of the . foard, would never have been effected." The fact of the matter was that the worth of land" was a bit of closed road and cliff which had been given by the council long before the dispute began. As for the supposed .£SOOO in cash, it was really a promissory note to pay ,£SOOO in five annual instalments, and according to a careful estimate which he (Mr. Crawford) had made, the board bought that by giving improvements worth ,£12,000 to Miramaf\ "I am inclined to think," concluded Mr. Crawford, "that' the tail wagged tho dog." (Applause.and laughter.)

Referring to the "tail and the dog" argument in his speech at Keiburne last evening, Mr. Wilford said The Dominion had charged him with acting as he should not have acted with regard to tho Bill in Parliament. He replied that he had stood for the Harbour Board against Miramar. The Harbour Board and the city were one. If he was elected he would fight Miramar all the time.' He alleged that Miramar was, in a mess with its tramways, and expensive drainage and sewerage were required, of which' tho city should not take the burden. He had stated in the House that if the betterment principle was to go the reclamation had to go as well. Tho gross cost of the reclamation would have been JE6OOO an acre, and that was not a profitable proposition for the board. . He dropped the betterment principle at the last moment and the reclamation as well, with the result that the Harbour Board and city were saved .£148,000 for filling in that part of the harbour, and were saved from the necessity .of acquiring Shag Point, belonging to the H. D. Crawford Estate, and the foreshore.