The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1904.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXX, Issue 12308, 27 February 1904, Page 2

The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1904.

At the meeting of the Harbour Board yesterday a letter from Mr W. J. Tennent, tbe late secretary of the Board, read, its subject being the endowments of that body. It seems that consequent upon a leading article which appeared in our columns some little while back, the chairman of the Board wrote to Mr Tennent, who resides at Marton, and asked him to set down what he . recollected l about them. Our. readers may remember that when the Premier was in Timaru the chairman approached him on the same matters, the impression left on our mind being tliat the Board had in times pa,st received very shabby, if not illegal, treatment at the bands pt the jfcailway Department. We may add tluit, without having any spepty} knowledge about the endowments;'that had always been our impression. Howeye,r, on this latest renewal of the grievance we determined to malce such investigations as lay in our power, and to publish the result. We took considerable trouble to get at the truth, and especially reli.ed on tlio actual legislation concerning these exidowmeHts. We certainly expeoted 1 to find strong confirmation of the views which we liad entertained Tip to that time. To our great surprise, the record pointed the other way, and w# felt compelled to say so in the leading article which was subsequently published in the " Herald." It was then that the chairman, some of whose statements to the Premier we had oriticised, applied to Mr Tennent. We attVibuted

forgetfulness to the chairman, and it is: not surprising that we did so in view of the result of our investigations. Mr Tennent had in his memory a source of information which was not open to us. .He does not appear to question ■ the accuracy of our statements as far as they went. He could not do so, because we gave chapter and verse for them. But Mr l'ennent f-howed that, to understand! the bad- treatment which the Board had received, it was* necessary to refer to what had occurred prior to the legislation of 1881. The letter is exceedingly clear, and we Viust compliment Mr Tennent on the strength of his memory and on the composition t of his letter, which goes straight to the essential points and sticks to them. It seems that prior to 1881, the Board, being thoroughly dissatisfied with the aqtion of the Government, opened up negotiators with the. Hon. R. Oliver, who atthat , time held the Portfolio of Public Worts. Those negotiations ended in a compromise. The Board claimed as compensation that the Government should endow them with any land that might be reclaimed in the future; i with all land north of the breakwater between the railway and the sea; with some land in the back country worth, say,' £30,000; and that the Government should pay them "in cash the sum of £IO,OOO. The Minister refused to make the cash payment and to give the 'endowment of land in' the back country. Mr .Tennent asserts, and we see ho reason for doubting him, that the Government yielded" the other points, and l that the negotiations were settled on'. That ~ Basfs; - the Minister undertaking to embody the arrangement in a Bill. It was distinctly promised that the Bill and the plans should be submitted to the Board prior to the measure being introduced in Parliament. That promise was broken. The Board did not see either the Bill or the plans prior, to the passing of the Act. "The Minister," says Mr Tennent, "was taken to task for the omission, and defended himself by saying that he had shown the plans, etc., to the then member for Timaru (the late Mr Turnbull), who had told him that they were ' all right,' whereas they were all wrong." It will be convenient in this place to quote a sentence or two from Mr Tennent's letter. He says:—"The Government, instead of reserving only 11 feet alongside the railway north of the breakwater, had kept a'.l the land between, the breakwater and the present north wall, and had even encroached into .the water in front of the landing service, while to the iiorth of the north wall; instead of reserving 11 feet, they reserved 46 feet. " The c Board protested, but the only restitution that was made was a narrow strip of 22 feet wide or thereabouts north of the north wall, which was vested in the Board under 'The Special Powers and Contracts Act, 1882.' The above are the facts so far as my memory serves me. Slher grievances cropped up afterwards:" It is unnecessary to go further. It is quite evident that the Board has been treated shamefully, and we willingly acknowledge that our former article was based on a misconception. But who can blame us ? Who could suppose that the Government had been guilty of such a flagrant breach of faith as to introduce a Bill which deviated in mostf important particulars from the agreement which had been solemnly arrived at ? Sir Tennent appears to recommend the Board to "keep pegging away" to,,_ obtain redress, and he wishes them every success in their efforts. ,; They will succeed, we fear, only when there are a Premier and a Minister of Railways each having a moderately tender political conscience, and that is certainly not the" case at present.^