WAITARA HARBOR BOARD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 187, 6 February 1914, Page 4

WAITARA HARBOR BOARD.

AND MR. JENNINGS. DECISION RESERVED. The final stages of a dispute which has been responsible for several stormy meeting* of the Waitara Harbor Board were arrived at in the Supreme Court at New Plymouth yesterday, when the Crown (Mr (.'. 11. Weston) applied for an order of the Court relieving Mr. W. T. Jennings of his seat on the Waitara Harbor Hoard, and for costs against Mr. Jennings. Mr. Jennings conducted his own case.

The facts of the case, as outlined be Mr 'Weston, were that Mr Jennings was, since WO3, the Government appointee to the Waitara Harbor Board, and he was re-appointed for a further term of three years in 1911. After he had sat for two years and one month of that term, he received notice that as his name was not on the electoral roll of the Waitara borough, he was illegally holding the seat, which he was asked to vacate.' This Mr. Jennings refused to do. As his name was not on the roll at the time, of his appointment, said Mr. Weston, it was elpar that Mr. Jennings' reappointment had been illegal, hence the present application. Mr. Jennings would urge that he should not be made to pay I lie costs of the action, but as he had, in spite of warnings, refused to vacate his seat, it was clear that the costs should bo paid by him. Various affidavits were put in.

I Mr. Jennings, in opening his case, pointed out that it was not by his misI take that he had been appointed, but |by a departmental error. Regarding his re-appointment in 1011, he state) , that he had not sought his re-appoint-ment, nor had he been.aware of it until he saw the Gazette notice. Referring to the Harbor Boards Act, he Bought to show that it contained no power for thy Government to appoint a member who had vacated his seat during the term for which he was appointed. Tt w<ip not until the Harbor Boards Amendment Bill was brought before the last session of Parliament that this was amended. At the time of his appointment he haJ held property in the Clifton county, so that the absence of his name from the roll was a mere omission. If he had resigned his seat it would have caused a deadlock on the Board. He had, no pointed out, sat for 25 months without a protest. Since ino.l he had been a member of the Board and had receive! a public recognition of his services. Mr. Weston quoted a letter from Mr. Jennings acknowledging one from the Minister of Marine, which had stated that bis name was not on Hie roll. Why had he not resigned then? Mr. Jennings, in reply, said that before he replied to the letter he saw a report of a similar case in Hawke's B«r, in which the Magistrate upheld hid view of the case. Moreover, he remarked, the members of the Napier Harbor Board had taken a friendly stand, which the members of the Waitara Board had certainly not done. He asked his Honor to remember that the original mistake waa not his, that he hud served the ? Board faithfully, acting in what he conIsidered the best interests of the conimunit, and that his successor could not have been appointed till the law was amended. He submitted that he should not be mulcted in costs. His Honor reserved Ins decision.