POOR FISH!

NZ Truth, Issue 1198, 15 November 1928, Page 7

POOR FISH !

Body Punch To S£a Toilers t " ; ..- ■ r. : \ (From "N.Z. Truth's" : Christahiurch Rep.) : ■■• : ; .. The wiles of our public- service, bureaucracy m , evading, the de-. liberate intention of acts of. Par- ' liament so as to screw a few more - pounds from hardly bitten taxpayers, are already, well known. DUT the latest scheme of the under- ° secretary of ' the Marine ' Department' to enforce harbor dues' '; upon fishermen is Machiavellian m .its ingenuity.. ; • ; ■: " • ■' The victims are the fishermen 1 of that pleasant little' resort, Akaroa. ' / The act which constituted - the Akaroa Borough Council the controlling authority for Akaroa harbor- (such as it is) provided that all dues collected should be used for the maintenance and. so forth of the wharves. '.-..•■■ Now, by the effluxion of time the council collected some £836 which was paid into the council's general account. Also by the effluxion of time the fishermen's wharf become: more an<^ more dilapidated, '■ until finally its' timbers were so rotten ; as to be unsafe. The fishermen from time to time approached the council with appeals for better accommpdation — their livelihoods, depended upon it. The .council hemed and • hawed and at long last applied, to the Government for a grant to build a new fishermen's wharf. And this is where the Marine Department stepped m. . The reply pointed out gently, but oh, so firmly, that the council had collected., this money and had applied if wrongfully to the general purposes of the borough. - It also pointed out that Akaroa had