WESTPORT’S WORRIES.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3397, 30 January 1920, Page 5

WESTPORT’S WORRIES.

WESTPORT, Jan. 29. In reference to the Press Associati-on message regarding the Westport Earl bonr Board deputations to the Prime Minister, the Westport News strongly attacks the statement of the Hon. Herries that the Westport. ‘Harbour Board has no moral claim to the impost placed on revenues from railway and wharf. The net returns from these were granted under an Act of Parliament‘ in 188-1 for specific purposes, namely, the making and equipping of the Westport Harbour Board, and on these securities the Harbour Board has borrowed moneys amounting to £850,000. The effect‘ of the Government’s impost to is nullify the eiidowinerit, as the Board receives nothing of the impost, but has to pay all additional expenses in the way of wages granted to the men on the section of the railway, and the wharf and harbour stlafi‘, also all the increased cost of material and -upkeep. Mr Massey’s statement that the non-receipt of these extra charges was not the only cause of the Boar-d’s financial difliculties, hardly states’ the position cto-rrectly, for the Government has the power under the Finance Act, to. increase the impost. so that if the. go-slow policy at the mines had not reduced the earnings of the railway, the Government, under the Finance Act, could have made additional imposts on the revenues, that would have still left the-Board impoverished. The News contends that the legislative action in §iVing the impost to the Government, instead of allowing it to go to the Board as part of its revenue, introduces a. pernicious principle. that unless speedily removed, may be applied C‘q.Uiln,V' (liSa.Strously to the endowments ot‘ other public bodies.