THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MAY 1, 1902. HARBOUR BOARD MANAGEMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11954, 1 May 1902, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MAY 1, 1902. HARBOUR BOARD MANAGEMENT.

It is exceedingly unfortunate that the business of the Auckland Harbour Board should be so entangled with personalities that the public interests, which should be its first consideration, seem to be frequently lost sight of. Into these personalities we have neither desire nor intention to enter. They are exceedingly objectionable to every citizen who has at heart the prosperity and the reputation of the port. _ They introduce altogether false issues. They are unworthy of the dignity of a great public body. And we are satisfied that the gentlemen of the Board regret them as much as the general public condemns them. But it cannot be questioned by any man who is versed in the methods necessary for the successful conduct of industrial enterprise, either by his own personal experience or by a common-sense appreciation of what we all see around us in a hundred forms, that the administrative system of the Harbour Board is utterly inadequate and altogether inconsistent with its requirements. It cries aloud for reform. It would not be tolerated for a moment in any great i private business. It would be abolI ished to-night if the rights and duties of the Board were transferred to-day to any single one of the many individuals, firms, companies and private corporations, whose industrial abilities make our city and country prosperous and thus enable public mismanagement to' be borne with comparative ease. We must all recognise that bodies like the Harbour Board, whose members do not stake their own individual interests upon the results of their directorate, whose business is preserved by necessary monopoly from the effects of a wholesome competition, whose policies tend to a state of drift rather than to a state of ever-in-creasing activity, cannot be expected to rival in intelligence and energy those for whom incompetence spells ruin. But we may surely expect of them that when the need for action becomes obvious to everybody they shall not unreasonably oppose reform, that they shall not permit entirely minor considerations to interfere with the discharge of a duty which has become plain and imperative. That the extensive work of the Auckland Harbour Board should be placed in charge of a competent engineer is an opinion which is universally held and which does not involve in the public mind any personal feelings concerning any member of the Board or any one of its servants.

The wide constituency of the Harbour Board have every sympathy with the reasonable claims to consideration of all its old servants and would promptly reprobate the doing of any gratuitous injustice to any official, high or low, who has sedulously endeavoured to do his duty. But there is no such question at issue. What is at issue is the wisdom of continuously expending large

sums of money in a purely technical ' direction without having the con- ! tinvious advice of a technical expert, < the wisdom of carrying on a vast industrial enterprise under con- j ditions utterly opposed to those which have been found most economical and most profitable throughout the entire world. This is the policy of the Harbour Board, a policy which has become associated j with its modes of thought and plans } of action, a policy which has been j handed down by successive genera-) tions of membership and which lias j no tangible basis for. its existence excepting that it is hereditary. .We j refuse to think that any member of the Board is so blind as to be enamoured of such an insensate system or so dense as to be unconscious of its incalculable costliness. The Board would probably welcome with heartfelt relief any pleasant way of 1 escape from its present untenable position. But unfortunately for the Board, administrative reforms, since they are commonly called for by administrative incompetence, commonly involve the doing of unpleasant things. Pleasant or unpleasant, the Board must do its duty, must place the Harbour work and Harbour management in competent engineering hands. Nobody expects of any such Board that its members should be themselves experts in the engineering science which its work requires. But it is expected that they shall see that a responsible official, having the

necessary qualifications, shall be engaged to do what we all know they I cannot possibly do themselves. They have no such qualified official. We do not question that they may have a most excellent secretary, but everybody knows, by painful and repeated experience, that they have no permanent engineer. A great deal has been said about the Calliope Dock muddle, but that is only the most noticeable of a long string of muddles inevitable under the system, is only an instructive manifestation of the singular process under which over half-a-million pounds sterling has been expended in Auckland Harbour. We have the finest natural harbour in New Zealand ; we have the greatest commercial interests in New Zealand ; we have the greatest opportunity to make of our port a world-renowned emporium and the great naval rendezvous of the South Pacific. The Harbour Board has a large income and has made lavish expenditures with .notoriously unsatisfactory results. The Wellington system of combining the appointments of engineer and secretary is open to criticism, but the Wellington system of entrusting management and responsibility to an engineer who thoroughly understands his work is above criticism. A comparison between the equipments of the Auckland and Wellington wharves and of the improvements upon natural advantages made in the respective ports demonstrates this to every investigator. Under our system of management : we not only waste oui money but we fall behind in the struggle between rival ports for pre-eminence. I Is this vital question to be smothered under a cloud of bickerings and personalities Is it to be further ignored by the Board on the peculiar | plea that one of its employees is not available to take part in its discussions 1