The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, September 21, 1915. HARBOUR BOARD AND ROYAL COMMISSION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1449, 21 September 1915, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Tuesday, September 21, 1915. HARBOUR BOARD AND ROYAL COMMISSION.

As previously mentioned, the Minister for Railways has suggested that a Royal Commission should decide in what manner the Foxton wharf (the port’s principal source ol revenue, which is wrongly diverted to the railways working account) should be transferred to the Foxton Harbour Board —either by purchase or as an endowment. Years ago Foxton’s public men were not alive to the development of the port, and while rich endowments were being distributed to other harbour boards and local governing bodies throughout the Dominion, Foxton put in no claim, and was passed over. To-day the revenue received from endowments granted years ago run into thousands of pounds, which relieves taxation, and assists in multifarious ways the districts which had sufficient foresight to look ahead. Foxton did not trouble about endowments then, and posterity suffers in consequence, Foxton could have had the Mauawatu line brought here, and every facility was offered the town to such end, but the same indifference and lethargy obtained, and the result was that the line ended at Lougburu. Our borough does not possess, other than a few acres on the outskirts, a single endowment, and local people wonder why other governing bodies are less heavily rated than our little town, and at the same time have greater public conveniences. We are paying the price of indifference. We possess no endowments. To come back to the wharf. A harbour board was constituted in the early days to govern the port, but after a little time the same old indifference ruled, and the Board fizzled out, and its functions devolved upon the Marlue and Railway Departments until a new Board was constituted a few years ago. The Marine Department handed over to the new Board certain endowments at the beach and the marine reserve at Motuiti, but the Railway Department refused to part with the wharf and wharfages, the revenue from which has for years swelled the credit of the working railways account, to the detriment of the port upon which, according to the Harbours Act, such revenue should have been expended. We have held all along that the Board would not he justified in paying the Railways one penny piece lor the wharf, but on the other hand it should he handed over to the Board, together with the revenue earned since the new Board was constituted. The Railway Department were justified in controlling the wharf in the absence of a duly constituted Board set up for that purpose, but when the new Board was constituted the Railway’s squatting rights should have ceased, and the Board should not be penalised further by the carelessness of past public men, and that no Royal Commission or Supreme Court Judge would, on the grounds of equity and justice, rule otherwise. We believe the Minister is anxious to give the Board a square deal by placing the settlement of the wharl withiu the scope of a Royal Commission.