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Otago Daily Times, Issue 15183, 30 June 1911, Page 4

THE HARBOUR BOARD. The Harbour Board agreed yesterday to discharge the Port Chalmers Borough Council from its undertaking, entered into with the Otago Dook Trust, to make an annual contribution of £500 towards the payment of interest upon the loan that was raised to admit of tho construction of the Otago Dock. The resolution does not purport, in terms to release tho borough from its liability for more than one year, but in effect it may probably be regarded as an absolute release. The discussion on the subject did not disclose any overwhelmingly convincing reasons why at the present stage the Board should have deoided upon the courso which it has seen fit to adopt, but it may perhaps be legitimately inferred from a remark that was dropped by Mr Moller that the matter received the full consideration of the Board at one of the recent meetings at which the members liavo privately given their attention to an examination of the finances of that body, if this assumption be correct it may bo permitted us lo congratulate the Board upon having realised that its financial position is far from being so desperate as a few weeks ago it was leprete-entod to be. We hope, in the circumstances, that we shall hear no mow dolorous statements of the kind to which the chairman committed himselflast month when he seriously invited the public to Relieve that- in the past three years tho Board had accumulated • a deficit on its working account of over £17,000—an average of £5700 odd per annum. It is sufficiently obvious that, if the Board had so signally failed to make both ends meet as. would have been the case if such a statement, instead of being absurdly erroneous} had been even approximately accurate, it could not have afforded at the present time to releaso the borough of Port Chalmers from the engagement which was made by it in a generous spirit of cooperation with the .Dock Trust in order to further tho accomplishment of the project of providing a modern dock in the port of Otago. Apparently, however, the Harbour Board fully recognises that there is no occasion for tho expression of alarm concerning its financial position, and this is at least a circumstance that may be noted with satisfaction.