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Evening Star, Issue 14519, 20 March 1911, Page 4

The Ota-go Harbor Board continue to maintain the unenviable reputation they have gained by levying the highest rate of dues per ton on coal cf any port in the Dominion. Why this should be so the publie do not know. For 6ome years past we have, at convenient times, directed attention without success to this anomalous —possibly scandalous—state of affairs. The consumers of Dunedin still pay 3s per ton harbor dues on their coal, though Timaru and Oamaru pay but 2s, Napier Is 9d, the Bluff Is 6d, Auckland Is 3d, Wellington Is, and Lyttelton Bd. We submit that no defence can be offered on behalf of the Ota-go port coal dues that would pass muster in any court of equity. Some day we believe the harbor dues on fruit, seed, flour, sugar, grain, potatoes, coal, and the like will be abolished—they ought not, in our judgment; ever to havo been levied—but the time when Otago ■will be declared a free port is, apparently, no nearer to-day than it was five years ago. All, therefore, that can bo done is to "peg away" at those indefensible dues on necessities in the hope of inducing the Harbor Board, for very shame's eake, to abandon them ultimately. We a6k : On what grounds should the ooal consumers of this City and district be made to pay from 33 to 350 per cent, more by way of harbor dues than consumers in other parts of the Dominion are charged? If it be urged, as we have heard it is, that this high rate is intended to serve as a protection to local mining enterprise, the answer is twofold : (1) Such a rate is not wanted, and (2] the Otago Harbor Board have no Tight to levy dues of any kind for such a purpose. The Board are going beyond their powers—morally, if not legally—when, for the problematical advantage of benefiting the local product, they mulct the entire community in a heavy charge. We affirm that if thifi really be the chief, or sole, reason for the existing charge of 3s per ton the Harbor Board axe assuming rights that belong only to the Government of the country. No local body has power to impose a high tariff to benefit the local producer at the cost of the shipper from other parts of the Dominion. It is inconceivable that the Legislature even intended that one portion of the country Bhould penalise another portion thereof by ■way of tariff dues. While, however, there is no need, in our judgment, to discuss the subject from any other standpoint, it I may ibe further pointed out that the many charges on sea-borne coaJ, such as ! freight, wages, receiving, carting, etc., give what should be an ample indirect I protection to the local product, which has merely to be put on the trucks and railed to the depot whence it is dia-

Harbor Dues on Coai.

tributed. We do not at this stage aak that the rate should be reduced to that of Igrttelton, (8d) or of Wellington (Is), but we do think that the new Board will be acting in tho best interest* of the City, of the Port, and of tho trade if, when they meet, they make it their first business to reduce the 3s rate on coal to at least la 6d. We commend this important matter to the earnest consideration of candidates at the forthcoming election.