THE HARBOUR BOARD ENDOWMENT.

Evening Post, Volume XXVI, Issue 103, 29 October 1883, Page 3

THE HARBOUR BOARD ENDOWMENT.

TO THE IDITOB. SiR-^Quem Deus vult perdere, Ao. The laying is rather musty, but our Government seem In a fair way to ita verification. Their proposal to retake possession of the boat part of the Harbour Board's land endowment can hardly bo regarded in any quarter m oth«r than an act of folly so extreme as to be equalled only by iti unfairness. I don't admire the Harbour Board; it was not neodod, arid it has never done anything to justify its existence; bat tho Govornment, whose creature it is, should be the laßt to turn and rend it. Every Board— every publio body, so long as it oxists— is entitled to fair-play, and tho Harbour Board does not get it. Having obtained an endowment — not lordly at tho best— it would require very strong reasons to warrant its withdrawal. And In this oaae there are no reasons either strong or weak. It seems all unreason together, and entirely opposed to those traditions of honour, rightful possession, and fuitii aecompliti, wfiioh we have boen aooustoraed to respeot. A new printing office is required most unquestionably, b*t no difficulty need be raised about a suitable Bito. As yon have pointed out, there is abundanoo of spaoe for building, not one, but half-a-dozen suoh offioes, if neoessary, on tho unocoupied and at present useless around at the rear of the Government BuildrnijH. A range of offloes there, fronting the railway station, would be moat convenient for the purpose, and a vast improvement upon the ugly close fenoe (so muoh affeoted by some offloial) whioh runs along Feather-¦ton-street. I hardly think it possible to raise objections to this site, and the faot of its being entirely within the control of the Government, renders tho proposed dispossession of the Harbour Board utterly iudefonsiblo. It is hard to say what the upshot of the present ivibroglio will bo j the limp boredom of a deputation having been gono through with the usual result. Beally the ways of tho Govornment are dark, and, in tho matter of buildings, small and great moro especially, thoy do the most unaccountable things, anon, for example, as having a carpenter's workshed erected close to the prinoipal onftrauoo to the Houses of Parliament: but without speculating vainly or over-muoh on the future, I have a glimmering idea that they will not persist in taking this acre of reclaimed land— the Naboth's vineyard— from those to whom thoy gave it ; and with this latent oonviotion I turn gratefully to the likelihood of a new Government Printing Office It is oertainly not before time, but a long way behind it. No private employer would have kept men working in the present place all those years on any consideration. It is unprofitable to the employer as well as the omployed. Printers aan nover work properly without elbow room and spaoe to breathe freely. The present office is overcrowded and uncomfortable. No sufficient room anywhere for materials, formes, or galleys. Ido not know how it is just now, but the last time I saw the pieco room, where, of all plaoes, the mon should have Buoh space and fittings as would afford them the neoessary facilities for earning a fair day's wages, I think I shall not be wrong in saying thero were at least 30 mon at work, with accommodation for 20. Everything had to be tumbled about, slutted from one part of the room to another, and the net result of it must have been, and will bo, that the men suffor alike in health and in pooket. I can hardly be mistaken if I estimato that, on the latter item alone, in a room so orowded as the one I have described, the mon omployed would lose on an avorogo Ss to 7s 6a a- week— a very serious deduction from a workman's wages. I havo wandered from the Harbour Board endowment to tho proper site for a printing office, and the urgent necessity that exists for its immediato erection, and I shall not " hark book " on the subject, leaving cool reflection to havo its perfect work. I am, &0., William Htjthison. 29th Ootober.