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New Zealand Mail, Issue 772, 17 December 1886, Page 22

Referring to the long-standing dispute between the Harbour Board and City Council, we have suggested that if the projected conference between committees of the Board and Council fail to bring about a solution of the present deadlock, the question at issue should be submitted to arbitra tion. It is of course possible that the intended conference may lead to some agreement, and this would be in every way preferable to arbitration. But we cannot disguise from ourselves the difficulties that lie in the way of an agreement. If any compromise were practicable, then the prospects of an understanding would he far more hopeful. But the essence of compromise is mutual concession, and in the opinion of one of the two parties to the dispute no farther concessions can properly be made. The Harbour Board having virtually conceded the point as to the boat-sheds, holds that in the interests of the citizens it is not justified in yielding any farther, while the City Council has in reality increased, instead of abating its demands. This promises but poorly for a compromise, seeing that any concessions can only come from one side —the City Council- The fact seems to be that the Council has receded materially from the position it took up when it confirmed the agreement arrived at by the last conference. That agreement secured for the Board all that is now claimed, but the Council has ever since been edging steadily away from the terms then settled, until now the divergence is almost as marked as it was before that cotnerence. Some members of the Council seem to us to be still infected with the preposterous idea that the interests of the harbour and those of the city can possibly be antagonistic. No fallacy could be more glaring. The two interests are absolutely identical, and must necessarily be so. In the particular point, now at issue the right is undoubtedly with the Harbour Board. The two bodies have agreed that there shall be no reclamation outside the line now definitely adopted. This leaves all outside that line ae harbour area, which clearly ought to be under the full control of the Harbour Board. The Board claims such control. But the Council demands continued power over the area which it abandons all right to reclaim,

and insists that, it shall retain the 1 right to veto any works contemplated by the Board within that limit, stipulating that the consent of the Council shall be necessary before any such works can be undertaken by the Board, and that one-half of the resulting revenue shall belong to the Council. We can see no ground for such a stipulation. When the area outside the reclamation line shall have been definitely abandoned by the Council as irreclaimable, it plainly ought to remain as a part of the harbour exclusively under the control of the Harbour Board. An, ample check against any eccentric proceedings on the part of the latter body is provided by the Act, which requires the submission of all plans of the kind to the Marine Department, a very much more suitable and competent referee than the City Council can possibly be. The demand for half rental appears to rest on no basis whatever. Now, if the Board be in the right and the Council in the wrong, as we hold to be the case in this matter, and the Board being very firmly convinced that this is so, it naturally follows that further concessions cannot be looked for on that side, and the question that remains is—Will the Council give way 1 We hope that it will, and if so the question could be satisfactorily settled at once. But if not, then there is a danger, we understand, that the Board may wash its hands of the whole matter, and determine to " let things slide," if we may be permitted to use the colloquialism. This would be a great pity, and would mean the loss not only of valuable time, but of a large immediate outlay which would be beneficial alike to the harbour and to the labouring classes. We therefore press our suggestion that, failing an early agreement, the dispute should be referred to a suitable arbiter. Such an arbiter would need to be selected wholly outside the Wellington mercantile or municipal influences. Had it been possible to obtain the services of so distinguished an engineer as his Excellency the Governor, no better arbiter could be desired ; but as this cannot well be, then either a Judge of the Supreme Court or some capable person from another part of the Colony should be named. That a competent arbiter would he readily able to decide the moot point satisfactorily there is no doubt at all.