The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1936 FORWARD MOVE IN HARBOUR POLICY.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20587, 28 November 1936, Page 8

The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1936 FORWARD MOVE IN HARBOUR POLICY.

Because of the spirit of progress that has been steadily permeating tin l activities of the Timaru Harbour Board, it has been evident for some months that once a harbour improvement scheme could be evolved that would appeal to groups of members on the Board, a definite move would be made in the direction of embarking upon comprehensive harbour extensions. It can be said that a definite turning point in harbour policy in Timaru was reached on the day the members of the Board, accompanied by their principal administrative officers, embarked on the dredge for an inspection of the harbour from within and from the open sea outside the port. There, before the very eyes of the members of the Board, was the harbour with its difficult and angular entrance and its restricted swinging room, that has for years presented such navigational difficulties to coastal and deep-sea captains. That day might well be regarded as one of the turning points in harbour development in Timaru. There before the very eyes of members of the Board were the harbour problems that had to be faced if the Timaru harbour —■ the ocean outlet for South Canterbury to the markets of the world—was to be kept abreast of these progressive times. The Timaru Harbour Board on its part, however, has been most cautious in relation to improvements, and ultra-cautiousness has from time to time steadied the progressive spirits on the Board. But tlie logic of incontestable evidence and definite deficiencies of the shipping facilities have swept aside all opposition and members have hesitated from time to time only to be convnced ultimately by the unanswerable case for harbour improvements presented to the members yesterday by a representative of the Board’s principal customers —the shipping interests. Hitherto one of the baffling problems that has confronted the harbour authorities in Timaru has been to evolve a harbour improvement scheme that would correct the difficulties of the harbour entrance, substantially increase the swinging basin within the harbour, and provide additional wharf accommodation, without prejudicing the future of Caroline Bay. It has been realised all along that any proposal that would reduce Caroline Bay to a stagnant sea enclosure, would not be acceptable to the people of Timaru in particular and the people of South Canterbury in general. Happily, that disadvantage, particularly from a voting point of view as far as harbour policy is concerned, has been removed; and, the representative of the shipping interests who visited Timaru yesterday, and conferred with the Harbour Board, accorded the scheme presented for the consideration of the members of the Board, his wholeharted approval. The Board, on its part, has now reposed upon its shoulders, the responsibility of placing the harbour extension proposals before the Local Loans Board and then submitting the issue for the decision of the ratepayers of South Canterbury. It is encouraging at the moment however to be able to say that the members of the Timaru Harbour Board have seen the vision of just the harbour that is required to meet present and future needs of progressive South Canterbury, and they will doubtless do their utmost in giving the required leadership to the district when the issue comes before the ratepayers.

THE INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL REFERENDUM. Notification in this issue directs the attention of parents and guardians in the primary school area of Timaru, that the Canterbury Education Board proposes to take a referendum on the question of an intermediate school for Timaru. With the assistance of the headmasters of the four primary schools the Board has been able to compile a roll of residents entitled to vote. So far as making arrangements for the taking of the referendum is concerned, the Canterbury Education Board has redeemed its promise and conformed more or less accurately with the undertaking given by the Minister of Education that no reorganisation of primary education would be forced on the people. But the Canterbury Education Board has not honoured its promises to place before parents and guardians the pros and cons of the intermediate school. Parents and guardians have certainly been invited to vote on the jiroposal, but not sufficient information has been vouchsafed eligible voters to enable them to make the decision requested of them on the voting papers. It is, of course, regrettable that the Canterbury Education Board has failed to honour the definite promise made by the Minister of Education in relation to the presentation of all the known facts for and against the creation of a new type of scheme in a system within which it might lessen rather than promote better articulation between primary and secondary and technical education. The Board cannot offer by way of explanation, the reply that speakers at the recently held public meeting at which the Minister of Education and the director attended, presented irrefutable proof in support of the intermediate school. As a matter of fact, even the deductions voiced at that meeting were based on false premises, principally because the type of school suggested bore little or no resemblance to the intermediate school recommended in the Atmore Report that is signed by the present Minister of Education, and has largely become the Government’s policy. Moreover, the very fact that the New Zealand Committee of Educational Research is at the moment investigating the intermediate school system ought to have prompted the Minister and the Board to postpone changes in the reorganisation of the national system of education. Hence, because of the failure of the Canterbury Education Board to redeem its promise, and in face of the lack of precise information that lias been presented for the consideration of parents, and particularly in view of the expert investigation now proceeding, the safest and sanest course the people of Timaru who are interested in the four primary schools, can take, is to indicate to the Canterbury Education Board that they are in favour of postponing making a decision until the results of inquiries now proceeding are made known.

“MINDING HER OWN BUSINESS.” Britain’s determination to refrain from any semblance of dictatorship, particularly in relation to the form of Government any country prefers to institute, ought to provide Hie Powers in Europe with a splendid lead. Nevertheless, the spectacle of Germany and Japan presuming to read curtain lectures to Russia, is a little absurd. All that has been said in criticism of the Soviet regime may be true, but no excesses that have been committed in Russia can eclipse the terrorism that has been directed in Germany against all that is culturally, racially, and religiously distasteful to the Nazis. But is Russia, in ordering a census of Germans to be taken, about to follow the Nazis’ example?