SIT DOWN, HAWKE’S BAY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 16 November 1927, Page 4

SIT DOWN, HAWKE’S BAY.

act of the comedy of the Napier Harbour Enquiry was staged last night, the scene being the cloistered chamber of the House of Representatives. All smiles, no doubt, at how pleasantly the plot of the play was working out, the Minister of Marine went through the formality of laying the voluminous report of the Commission of Investigation on the table—in itself a strong man’s job. It can readily be understood how cordial he was in his acceptance of the Commission’s reports and recommendations, for had he himself, or the chief officers of his Department, had the framing of them he could scarcely have produced a result more to his and their liking. In substance the report is merely a lengthy elaboration of the views which he himself had enunciated, so that he would have been ungrateful indeed, as well as inconsistent, had he found any fault with it. In duty bound, both to the Cabinet he serves and to what, perhaps mistakenly, he imagines to be the desires of the majority of his constituents, the Member for Napier conferred his congratulations upon the result of the Commission’s six weeks’ deliberations. There is, of course, no difficulty in finding reasons for the Member for Waipawa joining the chorus of approval. It was quite refreshing to have the Member for Hawke’s Bay raising a note of dissent, and one that we feel sure will have an echo in the intelligences of the great majority of the electors, not only of his own district but of those of the two others combined. As a matter of fact, some of the proposals set out by the Commission are nothing short of a rebuke to a community that is bent at length on making some endeavour to lift itself out of a veritable slough of despond. This being the case, we fancy these recommendations, if adopted by the Government, will arouse a very slron” and general sense of r$-

sefitment that is sure to find expression in one form or another—what will have to be

determined later. The Napier press gagged itself in advance by blindly undertaking to abide by the Commission’s decisions, so that we are not likely to hear anything in the way of protest from it, though neither of its members can feel very happy over an outcome which sets their town down to another ten or fifteen years of continued obscurity. There are, however, plenty of grounds, commercial, industrial, social and political upon which the findings of the Commission can be traversed, and when the proper time comes opportunity for doing this will be taken. Meantime, we can only await with interest the lengths to which the Department and its ministerial head will go in their attempt to impose their will upon the people of the Hawke’s Bay provincial district.