The Press WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1959. Lyttelton Dredge

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28805, 28 January 1959, Page 10

The Press WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1959. Lyttelton Dredge

The satisfaction the Lyttelton Harbour Board will feel at obtaining an import licence for its new dredge will be modified by the reflection that the whole business could have been settled two months ago. This unnecessary (and unjustifiable) delay may cost the Harbour Board and, through it, importers, exporters, and the general public a good deal of money. In his letter to the board, the Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr Holloway) has tried to do his best for the department, suggesting that if the board had supported its application of November 12 with more information the licence would have long since been granted. This ignores the facts that the department at first seemed more interested in collecting its own information at its leisure, and that in any case the department is supposed to know enough about New Zealand industry to realise that such a specialised vessel could not be made here. There seems no reason to suppose that it was Mr Holloway who originally caused the trouble by

seizing on a newspaper report of the letting of the contract to a Scottish firm. It is more likely that it was some departmental busybody with more zeal than sense. The one satisfactory feature of Mr Holloway’s letter is that it seems to dispose of the nasty implication (of an earlier letter from the department) that two Auckland firms had become interested in tendering for the dredge when the contract price was .known. The truth appears to be that someone in the department had the bright idea of asking these two firms if they could build such a dredge. Where Mr Holloway was at fault was in finding nothing strange about the procedure. The public, however, should be disturbed by the evidence of the opportunity the department has of meddling in matters of which it faiows nothing. Because the Lyttelton dredge was a large, costly, important, and urgentlyneeded piece of equipment the facts have become kiiown. How much damage have departmental officers done that never sees the light of day?