The Globe. SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1879.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1576, 8 March 1879, Page 2

The Globe. SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1879.

With tho recurrence of tho grain season has again come the difficulty of obtaining trucks. Notwithstanding the warning given to tho Government by tho almost dead lock which occurred last year, nothing—or comparatively nothing —appears to have boon dono to meet this year’s requirements. And, it must he remembered, that the difficulty is intensified this year, because a very large additional area of laud has boon put under crop. Tho advent of tho American reapers and hinders has enabled our farmers to cultivate largely without the fear before their eyes of being unable to get their grain housed. All this should have been foreseen by the Government. They cannot complain that they have been taken unawares. They have had plenty of warning. For weeks during the last grain season tho papers teamed with complaints. Yet what do we find they have done. Orders which were sent home for trucks have been countermanded, and only a small proportion of those needed to cope with the traffic which has developed have been supplied by local manufacture. In dealing with ibis matter, too, the Government have shown themselves to be apt disciples of the Circumlocution School. They have taken trucks from here—where the traffic is treble, or more, than it is in the North—at a cost of £lO por truck, and now they have to return them at a similar expense. Each of those trucks, therefore, will have cost the taxpayers of the colony £2O for a whim of the Government. But this is not the full extent of the injury, as far as this part of the colony is concerned. We have an energetic, zealous body in the Lyttelton Harbour Board, who have, during tho past year, made great improvements in our harbour —improvements rendered necessary by the large increase in our trade. The port of Lyttelton, therefore, might reasonably be expected to stand high in the estimation of shipowners, and a consequently low rate of freightage might be expected to obtain. No doubt this would be tho case were the arrangements of the Government for the unloading and discharge of vessels, so far as tho supply of trucks is concerned, as complete as the arrangements of the Harbour Board. But unfortunately, as wo know to our cost, this is not the case. Only on the day of meeting of the Harbour Board there wore no less than twelve vessels alongside the wharves and not a truck amongst them. Can neglect on tho part of the Government of the vital interests of the Port go further than this p Had it been a matter in which Dunedin was concerned wo should have heard of a speedy alteration. But the cream of the joke is the cool way in which Mr Macandrew attempts to shift the blame for this state of things off the shoulders of the Government. “ I always feared,” says the wily Minister, “ that your arrangements for meeting the traffic that has arisen were not far-seeing enough.” really the exquisite impudence —for there is no milder term applicable —of this is most amusing. Both the Chamber of Commerce and the Harbor Board were last year continually urging upon the Government tho necessity of providing for the traffic which it was foreseen would arise. Over and over again the Government were asked to make such arrangements as would effectually prevent a repetition of the annoyance and loss which were then taking place. And what has been obtained through those warnings, the result of so much experience P Why that in the very first start of tho grain season, when we are merely, as it were, getting the first drops of the shower which is to follow, the truck arrangements of the department collapse entirely, and there is every prospect of our being worse off this season than wo wore last. The promises of the Government to meet tho requirements of the traffic have in no way been fulfilled, and our port will, from no fault of our own, obtain such a reputation that shipowners will be chary of sending their vessels here when such vexatious delays occur in their loading and discharge. We trust that although, through the supineness of the Government, a great deal of injury will undoubtedly be done to our trade, the Chamber of Commerce and tho Harbor Board will not allow this matter to drop. We can but now have makeshift arrangements, but even these will be better than being left stranded high and dry.