TARANAKI HARBOR INQUIRY.

Patea Mail, 12 August 1880, Page 2

TARANAKI HARBOR INQUIRY.

It is erroneously supposed that the petition from Hawera against the Taranaki harbor expenditure has failed in effecting any change at Wellington. The petition was enquired into by a committee of each House of Parliament. The committee of the Lower House has reported ; the committee of the Upper House has not yet reported. An important distinction should be observed as between these two committees. The committee which has already reported, and which has simply pooph-poophed the petition, was composed of Mr Kelly? chairman of committee, and member for the Mountain city ; with the chairman of the Lyttelton Harbor Board as another member. Now these two members were not in a position to express an unbiassed opinion on the merits of the Hawera petition, because, firstly, Mr Kelly would lose his seat, if he stopped the expenditure of £285,000 at Taranaki ; secondly, the chairman of the Lyttelton Harbor Board would be condemning what he had been doing with similar illegality at Lyttelton, if he voted for impeachment of the Taranaki Board for the illegal expenditure alleged in the petition. These two men must be dead against the prayer of that petition. Their votes in committee would suffice to carry a report against the petition ; and therefore they must be held particularly accountable for making the following recommendation to the Lower House :—“ The committee has taken the allegations of the petitioners into consideration, and obtained the advice of the law officers of the Crown; and it appears that if the New Plymouth Harbor Board is expending its funds contrary to the provisions of the Harbor Act, 1878, or any special Act affecting the Board, the petitioners can obtain redress in the Supremo Court. As the law provides a remedy for the grievance complained of by the petitioners, the committee connot recommend the House to take any special action in the matter of the petition.” What we have to say on this report is that no other result could be expected. There is a good deal of human nature in this report, streaked with Taranaki idiosyncracy. From the committee of the Upper House an unprejudiced report may be looked for. We have no hope or wish that it may be other than strictly fair. We have no sympathy with the of view which prevents communities in a scattered district from carrying forward important works by co-operation. The petty jealousies of overwise politicians in small places, lest one neighboring town may get ahead of some other town by the addition of half a dozen houses, or an extra officer of Government, or an additional chimney to its police-station, are a deplorable feature in the public life of this colony. If the Taranaki harbor scheme is a good one, is feasible, and is worth the money it will cost, having regard to the claims of other harbors for help in equal proportion, then let the Taranaki scheme go on. The question really is this: Ought that amount of money, obtained in that manner, while money is denied to other harbors in the district, be expended upon a scheme which so many of the persons interested believe to be impracticable, or inordinately costly for the probable benefit ? The supposed illegality of part of that expenditure may be very interesting to lawyers, but practical politicians are more concerned with the merits of the scheme in all its bearings. If the scheme bo sound, the apparent illegality must be treated as a mere accident, an oversight not peculiar to Taranaki,