POLITICAL.

Evening Star, Issue 3801, 30 April 1875, Page 3

POLITICAL.

Mr M'Dermid, M.P.C, for Port Chalmers, met the electors at Crickmore’s Royal Assem bly Rooms last evening. The Mayor of Port Chalmers presided. Mr M'Dermid stated that his presence there was not so much to render an account of what he had done as to take counsel with the electors as to the requirements of the Port, and particularly to ascertain their views in reference to the action taken by the Harbor Board. Next session it would be attempted to make alterations in the Board Ordinance, and he wished to take the sense of the electors on. the matter. When the Ordinance was passed it gave the Harbor Board borrowin'' powers to the extent of half a million! which proved insufficient for the Board’s purposes. He knew it would take two millions to meet the requirements of the Board, and fresh applications for further endowments were about to be made. The wish of the Board was now to have the power of levying a tax on the Port Chalmers railway jetties, which in his opinion would be roost iniquitous. They also wished to levy a tax upon works they had never constructecl a manifest injustice to the Province. It had been found that the Board, with its estate of half a million, with jetty dues and pilotage fees as a revenue, could do nothing without touching the railways ; in fact, that unless they could block the railway traffic, they would have to cease to dredge the haibor. He was most anxious to know if he had the support of the electors in this matter ; for when he last addressed the Provincial Council he stated that if the Board had not some power over the Port Chalmers Railway they might as well stop the dredges. He referred to the action taken by the Board in requesting the Superintendent to give over his delegated ( powers ; and went on to say if the Dunedin people wished to dredge the harbor, by all

means let them do so, and raise the means by taxing the vessels that made use of it by going to the upper harbor—but they should not tax works that cost them nothing to construct. After several questions had been satisfactorily answered, Mr David Miller moved, and Captain Clark seconded the following resolution, which was carried “ That this meeting has every confidence in Mr M’Dermid’s actions as member for l-'ort Chalmers, and pledges itself to support that gentleman’s actions in every possible manner.”