PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 968, 10 August 1881, Page 2

PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 1881.

If Mr. Allan McDonald is attempting his ’prentice hand at political capital making, by discharging the Gisborne Harbor Board Bill at his constituents, without their knowledge, he will find he has shot a little wide of the mark. We certainly want a Harbor Board ; and a breakwater, and several other absolute necessities for that matter ; but the Poverty Bay constituency is not reduced to that.fpw grade of political pupilage as to require its Parliamentary member to dictate to it in the off-hand fashion as discovered in the Bill now before us. By accident we managed to obtain a copy of the Bill, for neither it nor the Representation Bill has been circulated in the district. Shortly, its principles are these : —l. The Board is to Consist of 9 members, 3 of whom are to be appointed by the Government, and 3 each to be elected by the County and Borough Councils respectively. 2. The Board will be constituted in virtue of the Harbors Act, 1878, and to hold office for 2 years. 3. The usual powers are given 1 o the Board to sell, buy, or lease, as the case may be, also to borrow' £lOO,OOO, for the purposes of the Board. Schedules are attached to the Bill, one describing the foreshore of the harbor (which no one can make out), and the other the Tauwhareparae block of 41,150 acres which is asked for as an endowment. The Bill is not clear as to what the framer of the Bill means by the “ election ” of the three members by each of the two Councils. If Councillors are to have a concentration of the. voting power of both the County and the Borough placed in their hands for the election of men to an office of such trust as is comprehended in the expenditure of a “hundred thousand pounds," and to be trustees of a valuable block of land, besides other large vested interests, we raise our voice most emphatically against it. It may be that we are too obtuse to grasp the profundity of wisdom contained in the Bill, or it may be that the pardonably crude state in which most private Bills emerge from the printer’s hands, does not set forth the author’s intention ; but the clause decidedly says that the six members of the Board are, as we have said, to be elected “by ” the Councils. Then who is to nominate ? From whom are the candidates to be chosen ? The ratepayers, or the Councillors ? A dilemma is about any way ; and certainly the more to be avoided would be the possible intention of confining the candidature to the members of the Council. This is not to be seriously contemplated for a moment: for we must confess that, as

public bodies, they have not shown anything approaching the business aptitude required to repose confidence in them. We shall not act ungenerously to the Councils. We forbear taking advantage of side issues to “ have a dart ” at them, as the phrase goes. They may be no worse than other Councillors, but that is no argument in their favor ; while their past and present glaring faults, proclaim them quite incompetent to be entrusted with works of such magnitude as those proposed in the Harbor Bill. Then there are the questions of endowment, and the obtaining such a gift of the public estate as the Tauwhareparae block. If an endowment can be had, by all means let us have one that will be worth the having ; but the Government, and the House, have an unfortunate knack of arguing that what is valuable to us is also valuable to them, and they hang their arguments on so many pegs of ebjee-

tion that it is impossible to remove them. For these, and other reasons, then, we think it most unwise for Mr. McDonald not to have taken his constituents into his confidence, and to have nursed his bantling in secrecy so long. And it is not at all clear that the opposition the Bill met with was not due to the unintelligible way in which it was introduced and explained. For instance, Mr.. McDonald is reported to have said, on moving for the second reading that “ he regarded the “ measure as a Colonial work.” Surely he does not say that Harbor Boards, as such, are matters of Colonial work. It looks very much as if Mr. McDonald had put the bridle on the wrong end of his steed. Had Mr. McDonald gone fair and square to his work, and led the House up to the absolute necessity there is for having a breakwater in Poverty Bay (for that is what was running in his mind) some definition of his meaning would have been arrived at. That is a Colonial work ; one which is more essentially necessary for maritime safety than those of Timaru and Oamaru, since it would be the only harbor of refuge between Wellington and the East Cape. * Mr. McLean, member for Waikouati, evidently thought so, for he twitted Mr. McDonald by saying; thfit if he “ bad done his duty to his: “ constituents, he would have had ne-‘-gotiations concluded that were under “ consideration before he introduced. “ the Bill, when he then would have “ done a thing that would be of “ Colonial importance.”