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Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10218, 12 December 1893, Page 4

If evidence were required in support of the proposition that New Zealand baa harbour works and appliances in advance of her requirements, it would be found in a special return lately published by the Otago Harbour Board, containing a comparative statement of the Board’s revenue and expenditure for the first nine months of 1892 and 1893, and the revenue and expenditure for the month of October last. The Otago Daily Times admits that this statement is “ calculated to impart an exceedingly gloomy aspect to the affairs of the Board,” and after reading it and giving full weight to the modifying facts and considerations put forward, we are inclined to agree with that conclusion. The figures for the nine months of the present year show a decrease of <£4243 3s 3d in the revenue, with an increase in the expenditure of .£2754 16s Bd, as compared with 1892. As the Board’s account for interest runs on at the rats of .£IOOO per month, and as ordinarily there is not much to credit at the end of the year’s operations, it is not surprising to learn that there is an actual deficiency of £5757 15s 7d for the first nine months of the present year. Palpably, this sort of thing cannot long continue, and the Otago Harbour Board has begun to set its house ia order. Reductions have been made in the salaries of officials which will effect au annual saving of £1149. The increased expenditure ia more than accounted for by the cost of cutting a new channel at the heads; and though it is hoped that this will be non-recurrent, it will cause a further loss of revenue by enabling large vessels to enter the harbour without the help of a tug. Apart from these facta, the significance of the return lies in the decline that it shows to have taken place in the use of the harbour. The item “ dues and berthage ” shows a decrease of £1298 7s 9d; pilotage fees are £413 15a 8d less than in the first nine months of last year, while port charges are leas by £175 5s Bd, and cranage by £136 Is Bd. It is admitted by our Dunedin contemporary that for the undoubted decline in the trade of Otago harbour “ the enhanced trade of the port of Bluff ia mainly responsible,” and it is added that “ the transhipment trade to Invercargill from Otago has almost ceased to exist.” It is, therefore, not dull times that are responsible for the well-nigh desperate condition of the Otago Harbour Board’s finances, and for so much we feel thankful ; hut the facts point very forcibly to the conclusion that heavy outlay in improving an imperfect harbour is not likely to prove a reproductive investment when there is a good natural harbour, served by an excellent system of railways, within easy distance.

Sin Robert Stout has, according to an apocrypha! report that reaches ua from Wellington, stated that there are “ six thousand good reasons ” \?by ho should decline to entertain an offer said to have been made u> him o£ the portfolio of Attorn<y. Greneral in the Seddon Government, With five thousand nine hundred end ninety-nine of these reasons we need not concern ourselves, since the remaining ono is quite sufficient, viz. that no such offer has been made to

him. On the face of it it was in the highest degree improbable that Mr Seddon would make overtures of a kind which he must well have known would be rejected. The rumour had probably no more solid foundation than the fact that Sir Patrick Buckley is contemplating a visit to England. If the portfolio were vacant, and if it were offered to anyone outside of the Ministerial Party proper, Mr H. D. 801 l would be a more likely man to have overtures made to him. Sir Bobert Stout’s opinions and aspirations are so well known that we are surprised that even a Wellington newspaper should have given currency to such a transparent canard, as that under notice. The epitaph on a certain maiden lady who is interred in an Irish cemetery is reported “on what appears to bo good authority ” to conclude with the pious admonition to spinsters ■" Do not be like Nancy Baxter, who refused a man before ho ax’d her! ” This epitaph is doubtless apocryphal, but it is ail the more on that account appropriate as a commentary upon Sir Eobert Stout’s alleged six thousand reasons for declining a portfolio that was not offered to him at the present time, though it is well known that he was offered and declined a similar position when the Cabinet was reconstructed after the late Premier’s death.