“INNER HARBOUR £731,732." “BREAKWATER £448,130.”

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 18 November 1927, Page 4

“INNER HARBOUR £731,732." “BREAKWATER £448,130.”

tJ'HOSE are the most misleading

words and figures which the “Hawke’s Bay Herald” uses as part of a heading to what it published yesterday as an extract from the report made by Mr. A. C. McKenzie, the engineer member of the Napier Harbour Commission. We *would put it to any ordinary reader of the Napier jUiper whether from this he did not gather that to achieve like results in the way of shipping, accommodation at the Inner Harbour and at the Breakwater would cost in the former case £731,732 and in the latter only £448,130. We would also ask that ordinary reader whether he went any further in the way of persuing the twocolumns extract in order to ascertain 'whether this impression was correct. W'as he not, in fact, content to take the “Herald’s” blackly displayed heading as giving him all he wanted to know, and to leave it at that? Going still further, even according the cursory perusal which the ordinary newspaper reader gives to such things, was he not still left with the impression conveyed by the heading 1

Yet that impression is entirely fake, and if the “Herald” wishes to pose as an informer of the public with a view to the formation of public opinion it should know that it is false. What then are the facts 1 They are these, that Mr. McKenzie estimates the cost of providing four new berths at the Inner Harbour for ocean-going vessels at the larger amount mentioned, and the cost of providing two new berths at the Breakwater at the smaller amount. Thus the cost per new berth is very substantially in favour of the Inner Harbour, being as £182,933 is to £22-1,065. Will the “Herald” be frank enough to publicly acknowledge this and so free the minds of the very great majority of its readers from the effects of a gross misrepresentation, which, difficult as it may be, ,we are still willing to attribute to ignorance or carelessness, should the correction be frankly made. Otherwise it must still be regarded as running behind in tandem harness with its evening contemporary.