The Daily News MONDAY, JULY 6. A SATISFACTORY POSITION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 167, 6 July 1908, Page 2

The Daily News MONDAY, JULY 6. A SATISFACTORY POSITION.

limits could hardly hiiw turned out betLer than tl.cv u in connect ion with tin' Harbor Jiill. The opposition manifested by the southern district has, it would seem, unite disappeared. At the instance of Messrs. Marx and Hughes the two clauses relating to freedom Irom liability in respect o£ any possible future loans, so far as the southern district is concerned, and equality of representation on the Board have been agreed to, and I he indications are that the Bill will have an uninterrupted passage through Parliament. The concessions, il they may be called concessions, do not, as we have before stated, all'ect the Bill. Tile differential liability clause is at the most but an allirmatiou that the southern district will not be liable for any future loan or loans, if such are in tile years lo come necessary for the furtherdcv'clopnient of the liarho;. As the southern district insisted 011 the guarantee in black ami white, the lioant was well advised in agreeing to its incorporation in the Mill. The representation point is, as Air. Maxwell pointed out at his meetings in the south, of minor importance, as tile precise condition forms part of the amending Harbor Act. to be dealt with by Parliament this sessio'n. The only fear we have in regard to the Hill ii that Parliament will alter the clause relating to the extent of the majority necessary lo carry the Bill at the poll, irom three-fifths to a bare majority, as obtains in regard to other llarbur Loan Aels 011 tile Statute Book. There is a strong democratic feeling t'lc -House, and one of the cardinal tenets of 'democracy's faith is lite belief in a majority vote. Our own opinion is, and has been all along, that this three-fifths condition is an unfair one, giving as it does a minority the power to prevent the development of a growing port, but as it has been retained, and there is an undertaking oil the part of the Board to withdraw the Bill should any vital part lie altered by Parliament, we hope our legislators will allow the provision, unreasonable as it may he, to remain. The changed feeling in respect of the Bill is due in a considerable degree to ill'. .Maxwell. Had he. not visited the south and addressed meetings there, it is pretty certain there would have been no agreement arrived at, at any rate at the present juncture. The opposition was strong and well organised, and there is good reason to believe that in a short session like the present promises to be, the Bill's passage would have been beset with difficulties. Mr. Maxwell's masterly grip of tin.' whole of the details of the Bill and matters appertaining to the Harbor Board and harljor works generally, enabled him to explain the position' thocoughly and convince the majority of his /auditors that the Bill had been framed entirely in the interests of the outside ratepayers, and to relieve them of any further payment of rates. And so far as the southern ratepayers are concern ed, the consideration that weighs with them, that they consider at all ill fact, is the liability of the payment pf rates. They are prejudiced against Hie harbor itself. They do not, or will not, believe it will ever become a deep-sea harbor, or becoming a deep-sea harbor will attract the Home boats. Such an idea appears to them to be but the fond hope of the people of the northern district. In this, of course, they allow their prejudice to affect their reason. But this aspect was not a plank of Mr. .Maxwell's advocacy of the Bill. He advocated it chiefly because it would relieve them of the rate. lie showed, clearly and emphatically, that" their position would, i n the event of the Bill not Inking carried, be far from satisfactory, especially if, as he held was almost certain to eventuate, the northern district decided to go in for a second loan over a contracted rating area, in which ease (lie Land Fund might be diverted partly or wholly, according to the discretion of the Board, to the payment of interest or sinking fund 011 the second loan. And it says something for their comprehension that southern ratepayers recognised the seriousness of the position. And this fact, more than any other, driven home so tellingly by Mr. Maxwell, turned the tide in favor of the Bill, and witli the suggestions of Mr. Marx, has made the Bill perfectly acceptable to the southern ratepayers.