CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 169, 27 July 1901, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

NELSON HARBOUR IMPROVEMENT AND MOTUEKA.

To the Editor ok " The Evening Mail.

Sir— Being a constant reader of your paper, 1 have often enjoyed your pithy and forcible criticisms on matters of national and local interest. But, sir, it was with feelings very much akin to disgust that I read your lame and impotent editorial on Mr Eugene O'ConorV, now well hnown and able letter. Why, sir, you could not have done your opponents a better turn Your weak and vacillating editorial cou pled with your ungenerous and personal remarks as applied to Mr O'Conor and also to Mr H. Everett, who dares to take you to task, has convinced a large number of the ratepayers of the Waimea County of the truth of what was at first merely an impressicn, viz that the Nelson harbour improvement scheme has received a bad fall at the hands of Mr E O'Conor. Sir, if your case is not suffi. ciently strong to enable you to write it up in a more generous spirit, remain silent, for by doing so you will do your cause far more good than by sticking to the attitude you have lately assumed.

I have no desire to posu as a champion of Mr O'Conor's ; that gentleman is well able to defend himelf ; but I do -wish to give your reader 3 the benefit of a little experience 1 had with one of New tfea.

land's many Harbour Boards. Some 20 years ago I happened to be in a certain district, a portion of the inhabitants of which had conceived the idea that they would make unto themselves a harbour. Now, -Sir. Hera comes in a coincidence. I have a vivid recollection of the wily and bland remarks made by the two local papers setting forth their reasons why the ratepayers should support a loan proposal, for which purpose a vote was about io be taken. They were to this effect : The consent of the ratepayers is a mere matter of form, a guarantee of good faith ; there is a very remote possibility of a rate having to be collected, as our immese resources, which only need developing, and a large increase in our export trade, will guarantee an income which will more than pay interest on the loan required for building the harbour. Have we not been treated to something remarkably like the above by our own two local papers ? "Well, Sir, I left that district and returned to it after an absence of twelve years, having purchased a farm there, arid to my disgust I found myself saddled with a harbour rate equal to all the other rates combined. Now, sir, [ will leave your readers to draw their own conclusions. Here was a Harbour Board wose revenue was far in excess of what Nelson s can be. They had the advice of an eminent engineer, who, if my memory serves me rghtly, had a large and varied national as well as colonial experience, and one who fully believed the harbour could bo completed for his estimate. Yet in spite of all this we find the people of that district to-day groan-

ing under a grinding and iniquitous harbour rate, for which there appears lo be no redress.

Now, Sir, with regard to the Motueka harbour, it is an utter puzzle to me how men with the merest rudiments of justice and fairplay in their composition can act as some members of the Nelson Harbour Board are acting towards the Motueka people. Here is a. community who have been Belf-reliant enough to undertake the responsibility of building themselves a wharf, and have paid off more than half the money they had borrowed. When circumstances gave the Nelson Harbour Board the might they take onto themselves the right to forcibly grab the Motueka people's wharf and so far as we can read between the lines at present the residents of this district will shortly be charged 100 per cent more than they are paying at present for the privilege of stirpfiing most of their produce over their own wharf.

Believe me, Sir, if the Nelson Harbour Board do not come to terms with the Motueka people on this question before taking a vote of the ratepayers to sanction the raising of a loan, they will find practically a block vote recorded against them by the whele of the ratepayers on this side of the Bay. — Yours, etc., ROBERT P A TTIE. Riwaka, 25.7.'01.

[The close relations between the claim of the Motueka wharf to self-go-vernment and the sudden advocacy by a probable candidate for the Motueka Parliamentary seat of the maintenance of the present entrance of Nelson harbour are further demonstrated by the foregoing letter, lhe value of the agitation will be gauged by the province accordingly, and it will be seen later on whether the people of the whole district will consent to be swayed by side issues manipulated by a section of the Motueka people. It is difficult to conceive any connection between the claims of the Motueka wharf and Nelson harbour improvement schemes. If the Boulder Bank channel be bad, it should be rejected whether the Motueka wharf gets self-government or not, and if it be good it should be proceeded with no matter how the Motueka wharf question is disposed of. May it be asked whether, if the Harbour Board decided to meet Motueka in every possible way, this agitation against Nelson Harbour improvement by means of the Boulder l; ank hannel scheme would melt away 'i We have reason to believe that it would. 'lhe obvious inference, therefore, is that it has been raised with the purpose we exposed in our footnote to the letter from the Council Clerk of Motueka, and the sudden advocacy of the improvement and- maintenance of the present entrance resolves itself into the action Motueka Borough Council's Wharf versus The Province of Nelson. All lovers of fairness will agree that the Harbour Board should meet Motueka in every possible way consistent with good adruinisteration. But it is intolerable that the Province and its interests should be taken by the throat and concessions shaken out in this manner. Neither is it honest. The questions of the be3t possible project of Nelson Harbour improvement and the claims of the Motueka wharf are and should be kept distinct j and, unless Motueka is too cynical to care whether a charge of its vote being buyable by concessions is asserted or not, it will be realised that the present method of attempting to force the hand of the Nelson Harbour Board by threats against the interests of the whole province is a mistake in strategy which will naturally lead to resentment. Finally, we may say that we should not have taken the least notice of Mr Eugene O'Conor's open letter to the* Harbour Board, with its exploded and amateurish theories since shown to be utterly untenable, had we not felt that it was the mere prelude bo an agitation against the Harbour loan originating from Motueka under the aegis of a bygone politician probably seeking re-entry into political life. Having exposed the " conspiracy " we are satisfied, for every succeeding letter in the newspapers shows how right we were in our deductions.—Ed. N.E.M.I