THE OAMARU HARBOUR BOARD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22368, 15 September 1934, Page 10

THE OAMARU HARBOUR BOARD

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —It is reasonable to submit that those principles which govern the representation of the electors in the House of Representatives should be adhered to in the appointment of members to local bodies, who should, through local body legislation, express the wishes of the majority of the ratepayers. On the most valid of grounds the majority of ratepayers have expressed their unqualified dissent from the proposal of the Oamaru Harbour Board to spend £40,000 ou a very doubtful enterprise. But to be fashionable Hitlerism must be applied even in Oamaru, so that, in defiance of the wishes of those who pay, the megalomaniacal foibles of certain gentlemen must be gratified. Without a mandate from those who are to pay the piper, this august body is evidently determined to pursue its squandering policy that will most assuredly land the board in the same predicament as that in which it found itself some years ago when the bailiff or receiver assumed command, because the financial wizards had made several mathematical miscalculations. It would certainly be enlightening to the oppressed rural ratepayer if certain members, now enthroned on the board, would, to introduce variety into the deliberations at the next meeting, give an historically accurate account of those “hungry forties” lest the present ratepayers harvest another whirlwind.

In a recent interview the chairman stated, anent two large shipments of meat recently exported, that, if the meat were railed to Timaru, the railage would cost the farmers £OOOO. Was this amount a "quote” from the Railways Department or a prejudiced estimate? Will the chairman please toll the farmers from what source the 5 per ceiit. interest on £40,000 is to come?

The reasonable request of the farmers of the Upper Waitaki, that the scheme should he deferred, was preemptorily jettisoned. When the phantom ocean liners dreamed of by the two financial somnambulists, joyfully sail past the city of Oamaru, when the farmers’ rates, at present very high, are raised until the camel’s back is broken, then the heroes of this quixotic enterprise will conduct them along the wharf and, with pride, point to the hallowed spot where £40,000 worth of underpaid labour was reverently committed to an ocean grave to augment the depth by two feet.

It is gratifying that there is one member sufliciently stable in mind to shrink from being whirled away by these Napoleonic schemes of aggrandisement. During one year there were only 800 tons of cargo taken by a direct boat. Is this cargo to pay the interest ou £40,000?

Sir Joseph G. Broodbauk, of the Dock and Warehouse Committee of the Port of London Authority, an outstanding authority on port problems, has wisely opined that one duty of the smaller ports is to “go slow” for the present in the matter of costly improvements, and rather to cultivate such local trade as naturally (not artificially) comes to them, and to do it by the cheapest and best service than can be given to traders.—l am, etc., Duoald M'Klosk.