HARBOR BOARD ELECTIONS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3605, 31 January 1883, Page 3

HARBOR BOARD ELECTIONS.

[To the Editor of the Daily Telegraph.] Sik,—Permit me to hazard the remark that your leading article of Monday's issue was a full exj>re.ssioii of public opinion entertained in Napier. Your observations on the several members were a fairly correct estimate of their utility as members of the Harbor Board, and you, perhaps, wisely abstained from criticising those minor matters of detail in respect to which some importance is attached, but which, in reality, arc paltry in the extreme in comparison with the great question now overshadowing harbor administration. Your article credited all the existing members of the Board with loyalty to the port, and this was nothing but just and fair to them. The careful reader, however, might have detected a something lying behind your words which you, in your editorial capacity, did not at that time care to bring prominently forward. I allude to the insinuation —if I may make use of the term —that the Hon. J. N. Wilson would possibly oppose the improvement of the harbor, the initiatory steps for which have been so auspiciously commenced at the instigation of Mr Omiond. You rightly said that the return of Mr Onnond by the Waipawa Council was problematical. I hear that the Council is divided evenly between Mr Ormond and Mr Johnston, but as the latter gentleman is the chairman of that body he will doubtless give his casting vote for himself. Thus Mr Ormond would be out of the Board, and Mr Wilson would be left to rule the members by the force of his superior strength of character. Mr Ormond is the only member able to cope with him, and should he not be re-elected Mr Wilson would have no more difficulty in squashing the proposal to raise a loan for harbor improvement than he would in crushing an egg. The coming election will be most critical for the weal or woe of Napier. It

is not for the ratepayers of this borough to regard the merits of Tom, Dick, or Harry who may offer themselves as candidates on the strength of believing in the deepening of the Iron Pot, or the building of a shed on the breastwork. It is our business solely to support Mr Ormond and those who will back him up in his action to secure a harbor for Napier. All other minor questions that may interest small minds should be put on one side for the sake of the real and lasting welfare of the port and district of which it is the natural, as it is the only outlet.—l am &c, A Towxsjiax. Napier, January 30, ISS3.