THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1907. THE HARBOUR BOARD ENDOWMENTS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13858, 22 March 1907, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1907. THE HARBOUR BOARD ENDOWMENTS.

Six months have now elapsed since a representative deputation, included in which' were members of local bodies in the country districts of Otago, interviewed the Prime Minister in, Wellington to protest to him in the strongest terms against the grave wrong the Harbour Board has suffered at the hands of the Railway Department and to appeal to the Government for an adequate measure of redress. The deputation laid before Sir Joseph Ward a case of flagrant and long-continued injustice. The only point of weakness in it—and the Prime Minister seized upon it eagerly—was contained in the fact that the Harbour Board for many years suffprcd patiently and unresistingly the grievances from which it now seeks relief. But it was not suggested by the Minister that quiet submission ,to a wrong, even if continued for many years, would warrant the ultimate denial of justice. And it is impossible for any person who dispassionately studies the history of the Harbour Board's endowments and of the seizure of a large portion of them for railway purposes, to form any conclusion other than that the Board has been the victim of a gross act of injustice. The seriousness of the position, so far as the Board is concerned, has been pointed out over and over again in our columns. A considerable area- of land, which the founders of the province had set aside as an endowment for harbour improvement purposes, which had been reclaimed by the Harbour Board in fulfilment of the objects of the trust that had been established in respect of the land, and which had acquired a large value and would have become increasingly valuable, has been appropriated by the Government for the use of the railways of the colony. From at least three points of view this action of the Government constituted the immediate infliction of a grievous wrong upon the Harbour Board. In the first place, the lands in question were, at the instance of the Government and without the sanction of the Beard, diverted from the purpose of the original trusts. In the second place—even on the assumption that the appropriation of any portion of the endowments to an object foreign to the trusts was

legitimate—tho process that was employed by tho Government to secure possession of the lands involved a distinct- injustice to the Board. If the lands had been seized under the terms*of the Public Works Act the Board would have been entitled to receive fair market value for them. Instead of appropriating theni under this enactment, however, the Government invoked the Harbours Act, which was certainly never intended to apply to any land's other than those vested in Harbour Boards under its own authority, and which cculd only, upon a casuistical interpretation of its provisions, beheld" to bo applicable to the endowments in question; and, through tho adoption of this course, the Beard. became entitled to compensation to the extent only of the actual expenditure upon the reclamation, of the lands and not of their market value. Moreover, in the third pln.ee, these lands had been pledged by the Board'as security to the money-lenders from whom it'had borrowed some hundreds of thousands of pounds which it had devoted to expenditure upon the improvement of the harbour. Consequently, the seizuro of the lands bv tho Government directly weakened the security of the debenture-holders, and in that aspect, as no adequate quid pro quo was offered, was wholly indefensible. The hardships of the Board hfive, however, been materially aggravated by the treatment subsequently meted out to it by the Railway Department. ■ Already it had suffered, without obtaining due compensation, the loss of valuable endowments, 'entailing the sacrifice of an income/which would have amounted to an appreciable amount. But the Department has since deprived tho remaining endowments of the Board of a large proportion of their value by closing up nearly all the avenues of access to tliem from the city. Right across tho entrance to Dunedin. from the harbour frontage and the shipping extend the railway line and the railway property, and for the proper handling of the railway system it is deemed necessary to close most of the streets by which communication is obtained between the city proper on the one hand and the wharves and much of the remaining endowments of the Board on the other hand. The effect is that these endowments have "been so depreciated that they have almost ceased to possess any letting value, and that the hopes the Board had cherished of being able, through its revenues from the lands the founders of the province had set apart, to reduce its dues on the merchandise that passes over its wharves have been blighted. ' And it is in this aspect that the unfair treatment the Board has received from the Government closely affects the people of Dmiedin and Otago. The virtual isolation of-the wharves and of the land on the eastern side of the railway represents in itself an intolerable wrong to the community. But the injustice is intensified in the fact that the existence of this condition of things, entailing as ifc does a heavy depreciation of the Board's property, cripples that body in. its finance, prevents it. from readjusting its scale of charges in such a way as to lighten the burden upon the consumer wherever situated in the provincial- district, and consequently operates to the severe detriment 5 of the City of Dunedin and its suburbs aud the whole of Otago. TheSe considerations were forcibly presented to the Prime Minister in Wellington last September. It was made clear to him that- public opinion in Otago demanded that an adequate quid' pro quo should be given by the Railway Department for all the land which, having . been set aside for harbour improvement purposes, had been seized by: it. Further, it was claimed, as .part of the irreducible minimum of the demand of tho Otago public, that the Department should, by the provision of subways or overbridges, furnish such means of access to tlie endowments that are..now. separated 1 from the city by railway .yards as wculd restore to them—at least partially—the value they should possess. We cannot say that the result of the interview the deputation had with Sir Joseph Ward was as reassuring as' we could have wished.. Moreover, it must be a matter cf distinct disappointment that the representations addressed to the Government have so far borne 110 fruit other than to secure that a proposal to erect maintenance sheds at Pelichet Bay, and thus to' construct an additional barrier between tho city and the foreshore, has been abandoned. ■ The Prime Minister undertook, however, that the Minister of Railways would visit Dunedin after the session and then go personally into the question of affording access to the land on the seaward side of the line, Sir Joseph Ward adding an expression of his personal belief that this would have to be done by means: of subways. The promised visit by the Minister of Railways has not yet been made to Dunedin,- but Mr Hall-Jones will be here in a few days' time on public business. We hope that the Harbour Board and the other local bodies, ; all of which, as representative of the community, are directly interested, will not neglect the opportunity of strongly representing to him, as was done in Wellington to Sir Joseph Ward, that a feeling of considerable soreness exists over the way the (Harbour Board has been treated and that Otago is united in the determination that the injustice of the past shall bo adequately requited.