Bay of Plenty Times. TUESDAY, MARCH 26th, 1929. HARBOUR COMMISSION.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LVII, Issue 10035, 26 March 1929, Page 2

Bay of Plenty Times. TUESDAY, MARCH 26th, 1929. HARBOUR COMMISSION.

EVER since the Harbour Commission was held there has been an implied understanding—if not an expressed undertaking—-that in due course the accounts against the harbour board for that Commission would be made public. An abortive attempt—we might be pardoned for calling it ridiculous—was made by the Board to get the Government to pay those accounts. Having failed in that, the Board, having also failed in its avowed intention of erecting a wharf al the Mount, but having succeeded in piling up a bill of costs against itself for over £7OO for the Commission, and over £I3OO for plans for the Mount wharf, took no action in the direction of making known the details of these amazing bills, until certain members moved that the Secretary prepare detailed statements to laybefore the Board. At the last meeting these statements were submitted, one showing the payments made to the Board’s engineers during the term of their engagement, and the other, the amounts paid out on account of the harbour commission. After consideration the Board, on the motion of Mr Clinkard, seconded by Mr Sinclair, unanimously- passed the following resolution:

“That this Board is agreeable that these accounts shall remain on the table, and be open for inspection according to the terms of the Act.' 1

It may be here stated that Messrs Macmillan, Grant and Mends were not present at the meeting. Briefly the Harbours Act provides that the accounts and books of the Board shall be open for inspection by a member of the Board, a debenture-holder, or a creditor. The clear intention of at least a majority of the members present

was that these accounts should not be published in the newspapers. Obviously any member present who did desire that they should be made public—and there were someshould not have supported the motion. In face of the Board’s resolution it is not possible to publish the details of the accounts in this paper, nor can any member of the Board who was present, logically or honourably, now take any steps to have them published. The Board s resolution must first be rescinded. In any case it is questionable whether the Board has the legal power to order them to be published. Having set out the position, we assume the Chamber of Commerce will, at its next meeting, rescind the motion passed when it last met, asking this paper to publish the accounts. In any case it is quite unnecessary for the Chamber of Commerce or any other local body to remind us of our obvious duty to the public. That duty in this instance does not embrace doing something—however great the public clamour—against the expressed intention of the Harbour Board, which must in this and in every other instance he conceded the right to conduct its own affairs in its own way within the limits of the law governing its operations. It is, however, quite competent for us to remark that the attitude of the Board is undoubtedly opposed to the best interests of the harbour district. The fact that the Board has net long since made known the details of this extraordinary expenditure of public money arising out of an absurd, but expensive, determination to develop a deepsea harbour at the Mount in defiance of the clearest possible evidence that it will be decades before such an expenditure is warranted, suggests that members are not proud of the expenditure. There is, however, the consolation that if all wild cat schemes could be stayed by a modest expenditure of £2OOO, all would bo fairly well.