HARBOR BOARD AFFAIRS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 202, 29 September 1888, Page 2

HARBOR BOARD AFFAIRS.

The way in which the most simple matters are sometimes treated by the Harbor Board or some of its members is not calculated to inspire that public confidence which was never more necessary than at the present time. At the Board’s last meeting a communioation was read, being from the Marine Department, and asking for information with regard to the mouth of the river, it also being stated that some person had conveyed information to the Department of extraordinary silting that was going on. Naturally members were carious as to who was the person that had conveyed the information, and objection was actually raised to granting the request of the Department for further particulars. It is hard to imagine with what short-sightedness members of the Board can occasionally be affected, The Marine Department is the superior body, and if it thinks fit to listen to euoh a communication from a private person it is perfectly justified in doing ?o, and one would think the Board would immediately give every facility for testing the truth or otherwise of the report. It does not reflect much credit on the parson that adopts this method of doing things, but for anything the Suit'd knows the Department may have bean approached in »n open manner, and it does not follow because the person’s complaint is listened to that the Department f hould divulge the name. It must be presumed that the person making the assertion believed he had sopje grounds for doing so, and and when a statement; of this kind is allowed to become public, s ops should be taken to ascertain how much truth (if any) there it in ft. Fortunately it was decided to -get the matter reported upon, and comment may now ba hardly meopssary, but the Board should be oarefal in dealing with these little matters, as it it by such that the mind of the genera] public it moulded- It it questionable whetta tito Department had any right to receive a oompl Jut made iq eqch form, but we look upon it as a hopeful sign fhqt much of the old system of red-tape is being dme away when it is so easy for an individu 1 to get access to the confidence of the heads of a department. If the statements are proved to be a 'fabrication then the Board is not likely to be again troubled that way; if therg is truth ii; them the.-i that justifies its being ascertained by any fair means, and it matters nqt a straw who gave the jnformatlon,