The Oamaru Mail. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1909.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10068, 9 February 1909, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1909.

■' You can fool a part of the people a part of tho time f you can Tin-; oAJTAitu fool all the people a lIAEHOE. boaed a part- of the time ; but vindicated. you can't fool all the people all the time." This sagacious saying lias been exemplified by the result of the Harbor Board election of yesterday. Curious as it may seem, there were people in Oamaru who persuaded themselves that- there were suHicient careless or unintelligent citi/.ens to enable the Harbor Board s enemies who. as we think, are also the enemies of the harbor, to prevail. The County Council — the representatives of the country settlers and of vital interests—earlier in the day foreshadowed what was to come by electing delegates who will display a genuine loyalty tor the port in a straightforward a lid practical way. This prelude was, however, but a reflection of an overwhelming public opinion both in town and country. The seats 011 the Hoard for Oamaru were carried by storm: and there are now evidences that, "when file polling on the £50,000 issue took place, instead of there being a shortage of one vote and a fraction of the two-thirds majority required, there would have been an overwhelming surplus of votes if a large number of the voters had not been misled into believing that the Board's proposals were unnecessary. As it was, there was a large majority of the voters in favor of those proposals, and nearly all desired that the effectiveness of the port should be maintained. As we said just after the poll, the failure of the Board to secure the sanction of the ratepayers for the loan had its compensations. The loan was only intended as a means to ail end, and if that end cotikl be achieved i:i a more economical way, so much the better. JOven if the loan' had been approved, there was no obligation to borrow- and spend all that amount- if a quicker and more economical method were, in the meantime, propounded. No one was bent on spending money merely for the sake of spending it. Amongst- the friends of the new dredge scheme were men who possess valuable properties in the district and who were 'voluntarily saddling themselves with heavy additional responsibilities, because they were convinced, that the maintenance of the direct over-sea trade was indispensable to their own prosperity and to the real progress-of this part of the country. These hard-headed, successful settlers may be trusted to protect their own interests. They "were not influenced by a whim, or by personal pique which had grown out of a variety of circumstances. They did not lose sight of the main issue and of their duty to themselves and 1 the public in a mass of figures designed, to overawe, and mislead, and capture the ratepayers. The Board's enemies were as inimical to ilr Paterson s proposals as they had been to those submitted to the ratepayers. They would have consigned Mr Paterson to outer darkness for having dared to propose anything in conflict with their ineptdesigns. The epistolary assassin was on his track, and, in the security of the black' darkness of anonymity, made thrusts at him which were intended to be- fatal, ilr Paterson was charged, on the morning of the poll, so that he could not reply, with liaving proposed his scheme in order that he might make money out of it at the ex•pense of the public. The public respondedto tins insult by placing him, gloriously triumphant, at the head of the poll. Those who suggested this obvious falsehood at the last moment hate personalities; and so it seems that personalities are a virtue if you attempt to hide your perpetration of them. T'lii6 i ; a theory which is a fit companion for uie agitation against the Board—it is so absolutely Michiavelian. There was an attempt, also at the eleventh hour, to smuggle into the Board's councils an enemy of the Board sandwiched between two of the Board's champions. It would have been folly to elect a citizen who, however admirable in other respects, had proved himself to be so implacably inimical to the Board's aspirations. The public exhibited their consciousness of this by rejecting the counsel, though it was given with all the art of the sophist-. With such an overwhelming majority in favor of progressive action, the Board have now nothing to fear, except the secret machinations of those who are addicted more to intrigue than to principle ; and even these, though vexatious, will in the end be defeated. There are now eleven members on the Board inspired by the spirit of enthusiasm and progress—who arc determined to see' the harbor established on an effective and durable basis. It- is said that against these there are three members, two of whom appear to view the harbor as unnecessary, whilst another seems to fear that its progress may be too marked. One of these is the representative for Waihao and another is that for Hakat-aramea. Though the Hakataramea. representative has defeated a friend of the Board's late scheme, it may transpire that he is not in favor of allowing the harbor's condition to drift. This would appear to be ft reasonable conclusion; it would be difficult to justify anyantagonism to the harbor's effective existence front a delegate accredited by settlers whose undoubted interest it is to have produce shipped at the Port of Oamaru. Probably the only member who will really be against the maintenance of the efficiency of the port is the Board's evil geni'is.