The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 1918. THE PORT OF WANGANUI.

Taihape Daily Times, 29 May 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 1918. THE PORT OF WANGANUI.

(With which is Incorporated The Xaihapo Post and Walnramo News)..

The business people of Wanganui have been electrified into action in connection with their harbour, and with that which affects Wanganui generally as a port by one of those inscrutable idiosyncrasies for which the “Square Deal” Government has become notorious. On Monday night a large and influential deputation, representing the territory which Wanganui, as a port, now serves, waited oh Mr. Herries, Ministere of Railways, in an effort to get a recent decision of the Railway Department annulled or modified. After reading the report of what took place there can be little doubt in any mind about the justness of the Wanganui case. We are not quite sure, however, that the '‘Square Deal” Minister has not rendered valuable service by his quaint attitude, and by his Department having imposed a penal and iniquitous tax on the operations of the harbour in its relationship with the State railway. Any imposition or tax that is not uniform under almost precisely similar circumstances stands self-condemned, and nobody knows this better than Mr. Herries, and yet he time after time tried to defend that which must prove a serious blow to the sea trade of Wanganui if revision is withheld. It is not denied by the Minister that the Sorting Charge recently demanded from Wanganui is a levy that is not made against all other harbours; the Minister does not deny that this new levy on Wanganui trade will not operate to its disadvantage and result in driving its shipping trade to Wellington, but, he says, he thinks it will not. He did not appear to feel comfortable under the ordeal, for he gave a multiplicity of illogical reasons for maintaining the imposition; reasons which conflicted and were as absurd as the charge itself. The Minister’s defence of the sorting imposition would convince most people that Mr, Veitch, M.P., was fully justified in telling him that they were losing sight' of the real purpose of State Departments, and were drifting into the ways of American railway trusts. Sorting work had been done in the past for tenpence, and now it was increased by eighteenpence plus two ten per cents. We have not made careful calculations, but we are of opinion that the new charges will cut off Taihape and the country north, to Ohakune, from Wanganui, and attach it to Wellington. If they were fair there could be no ground for complaint, even if Taihape was driven into Auckland’s arms, but the unreasonable hugeness of the increase at once arouses suspicion. Mr. Herries was rather harddriven in his defence and cut rather a sorry figure; it was a case of right or wrong, I am going to stick to it, and he did. First, he said the work of the Department could not be conducted in war time as it was in peace time. Second, it was his duty to place this levy upon Wanganui to assist in collecting silver bullets for the Minister of Pin. ance. Third, the increase was partly necessary to recoup the Department for bonuses paid to railway workers. Fourth, the Department had been doing sorting work at a loss and it could not continue to work without adequate payment, no business man would work without payment, and yet, in The same breath he tells the deputation that he had carefully gone into figures and found that the work was costing the Department two shillings per ton for sorting. To get adequate payment ought not the Minister to have put on half-a-crown? He was too anxious, there was a bit of the horse-dealer evident in trying to make Wanganui believe the bargain was all right. The fifth reason for the charge was not creditable to the speaker or complimentary to the intelligence of the de-

putation. Mr. Herrieg simply apologised for what his Department had

done; he said, “It was not pleasant for him as head of a Department to put charges on to people in war time, but he had to do things that would not be done in normal times. They had to get revenue and see that work was adequately charged for.” He added that the charge had previously been made and he had merely revived it. If what Mr. Herries states correctly represents his case then we say his modesty makes him a political prodigy. Wanganui hasn’t a leg to stand upon, for it is plain that had the Minister done his duty the charge would have been in the neighbourhood of ten shillings at least. When the Department is adequately paid for its work out of the Is lOd per ton sorting charge, Sir Joseph Ward has got his share of the silver bullets, then, after losses had been recouped and war time considerations provided for, we wonder how much was left to pay the railwaymen their bonuses? Even if the Minister had overstepped discretion in proving a “Square Deal” there was still no occasion for anything apologetic, crocodile tears ill-suited such an occasion. Apologies need never accompany unequivocal “Square Deals.” Justice neither needs bolsters or padding, and if it was justice pure and simple that Mr. Herries desired to mete out he has certainly done himself the injustice of having said too much. Politicians sometimes exhibit cunning little peculiarities, one of the most regrettable being that o' erecting an Aunt Sally and then vigorously endeavouring to knock it down. We think nothing so weakens a case as the practice of this old hackneyed trick. Mr. Herries was a little disingenuous in stating that he hardly thought the charge of eighteenpence would divert trade to Wellington as the shipowners would not have to pay it. The deputation did not say or suggest that shipowners would have to pay it; then why was it inferred they did; was that a little camouflage? We are distinctly disappointed with the case made out by the Minister, and we canont believe that after it has been studied and analysed by the Wanganui people, they will feel at all squelched. The Minister has not sueceeded in showing that their case is bad, or that their attitude is untenable; they have simply learned that, rightly or wrongly the huge increase of sorting charge has been made, and, that rightly or wrongly, the Minister will refuse to make any attempt at rectification. Wanganui must how show -whether it has a real, hard, solid backbone or whether it has one of jelly. Wanganui carries on its shoulders the interests of a very large territory, will it prove equal to the occasion?