THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, MAY 12, 1914. THE HARBOUR BOARD.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16071, 12 May 1914, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, MAY 12, 1914. THE HARBOUR BOARD.

It might be unsafe to regard the election yesterday of Mr H. E. Moller to the position of chairman of the Otago Harbour Board for a second term as expressive ot the opinion of the majority of the members that there should be no break in the chairmanship during the period for which the elective members occupy their seats. To hold such a view would be to favour the application in the case of the Harbour Board of the principle which' after ' this ' year is to be applied in the municipal councils, since the mayors who will be elected in Apiil next will retain their offices for a period of two years. But the consideration that the services of a chairman of the board are likely to be of greater value in a second year of' office than during the year of his assumption of the duties oi his responsible position will doubtless have not been without its weight in the voting., Mr Moller'has served the board efficiently during the past year as its chairman, but the special insight he has obtained into the business of the board and into the administration of its various departments in the past twelve monthf has necessarily increased his qualifications for the office to which he has now been re-elected. Mr Bullock, who was nominated in opposition to Mr Moller, labours to some extent under a disability in that he is the representative of special interests on the board. The argument is sometimes heard that the interests of Mr Bullock's constituents may conflict with the interests of tho community as a whole, and that it is inadvisable that. any member who is not tho representative of the whole body of electors in any. district should be appointed to the chairmanship. The argument is more plausible than sound. 11 there is any validity in the vjew that the interests of the payers of dues on ships are necessarily antagonistic to those of the electors, the policy under which representation is granted to the payers of dues might be questionable. But the acceptance of the view that the repre-, sentatives of these interests on the board should be debarred from the occupancy of the chair would inevitably react injuriously upon the personnel of the board. It would be- unfortunate if the principle were asserted that the chairmanship of the board should be attainable only by the representatives of certain classes ot constituents and not by -those of other classes. The administrative year, so to. speak, o+ the Harbour Board does not coincide with its financial year. The circumstance is one that has manifest disadvantages. The accounts are made up for, the calendar year and are presented to a body the composition of which may to a large extent be changed every second year within a few weeks of the adoption ,of the financial record. The board which discusses the financial position as disclosed by the accounts and decides upon a course of policy in connection with it may find itself practically out of office before that policy has been more than entered npon. This is the odd year, however, and the board as at present constituted has nearly twelve months before it within which it may take what steps are necessary to adjust its finances. For it really seems to be necessary that there should be some adjustment. We say nothing about the loan accounts against which the cost of extensive works of, we fear, doubtful utility that are being undertaken by the board will be charged. The revenue account itself calls for the close attention of the members. As the result of a revision of the port charges the ordinary receipts for 1912 showed an increase oi over £6000 upon those of the previous year. They amounted to £95,245. Last year they totalled £88,001. This amount, we are told, was £9000 below the estimate, the strike being rightly held to have involved the port in a serious loss of revenue. The ordinary expenditure was £95,195, which practically equals the receipts for the preceding year. It would appear, therefore, that the expenditure for the year .exceeded the a little more than £7000. The excess'was, however, greater than this. The ordinary expenditure, as shown above, excludes such items as commission, exchange, and interest on drawn bonds, totalling £733, and it also excludes not only a contribution of £2000 to the reduction of the accumulated deficit on the dock account, but also a transfer of £1000 to the dock maintenance account. There is, however, nothing more certain than that the contribution to the dock account will be annually recurring. It is probable, indeed, that ithe amount required each year from the general account to aid the dock account will tend to grow. It has become necessary, therefore, to make regular provision for this payment. As the tendency, moreover, is for other charges to increase, the need of a watchful supervision of the board's finance is apparent.

THE OPPOSITION WAY. The Lyttelton Times complains that we have based on a distorted report of what was said by Sir Joseph Ward at Christchurch a charge that he -was guilty ot misrepresentation in ■ his comparison ot what the Government of which he was a member and the present Government have done in respect to the cost of living. The truth is that wc quoted the reports ot both Christchurch morning papers and were unable to reconcile either of them with the recorded facts. Whichever report is taken—and the Press firmlv controverts the assertion that its report was not an accurate transcript of what Sir Joseph Ward said—the statement attributed tp the Leader of the Opposition was a misrepresentation of fact. But the Lyttelton Times, while rebuking us for criticising Sir Joseph Ward in what it calls " tho Conservative way/' adopts a method of

controversy which we have no intention ot pursuing. It misquotes from our columns our quotation of part of what itself represented Sir Joseph Ward as saying with regard to the achievements of his party while it was in power, and conveniently omits all reference to what it represented him as saying with regard to the Reform party. uur contemporary reported Sir Joseph Ward as having claimed that his party " had reduced the cost of living oy reducing the tariff on. foodstuffs by from zO per cent, to 4.3 per cent "—a statement upon which it now places its own. interpretation. It also reported him as having asserted that " the figuTes showed that the Reformers had increased the cost of living by 4.3 per cent." Is this not a misrepresentation? Our contemporary ignores the point. In general terms it repudiates the assertion that Sir Joseph Ward misrepresented the facts of the case, but it carefully dodges the specific question whether the allegation that the Reform party has increased the cost of living is well-foyfided or whether it is not | entirely baseless. In just the same way it shirks the issue -raised by another statement ascribed to Sir Joseph Ward in its own report of ihis speech. This was n statement which charged the Reform Government in effect with prodigality of expenditure. "In the matter of expendi- ! ture," Sit Joseph Ward said, according to the report in our contemporary, " anyone could turn up the "last Budget and Efea that the expenditure had been increased by £741,600 in twelve months, and that the public works expenditure had increased by £284,204 more than the normal increase in twelve months, the expenditure being just £906,600 more than that of the previous year." Only one of these figures was correct. It was that which showed that the increase in the expendi ture charged against the Consolidated Fund was £741,600 in excess of the ex pendituro for the previous year, which itself was £397,262 in excess of the expenditure in the year before that. The other figures were grotesquely incorrect. The Lyttelton Times, however, has nothing to say about these blunders. If " the Opposition way" is for a journal to garble quotations from its own reports and to endeavour by false cries to divert attention from clearly proven allegations of misrepresentation on the part of its political leader, it is a way that hardlv calls for commendation from plain people who lilts an honest and straightforward' discussion of public issues.