A Good Start.

Observer, Volume XIV, Issue 794, 17 March 1894, Page 2

A Good Start.

Mr Adam Pobteb has inaugurated his reign at the Harbour Board offices in characteristic fashion. Like the matter-of-fact, hard-headed man that he is, he has begun by doing something practical. We have had Harbour Board chairmen who have contented themselves with criticising the work of their predecessors ; chairmen who have squandered thousands of pounds on ' white elephant ' docks and other fads ; chairmen who have been mere figure-heads, dummies m fact, who have allowed themselves to be dictated to by subordinates in office and who have signed anything and agreed to everything submitted to them ; chairmen who have sought to push their own interests and the interests of outsiders, at expense of the Board ; chairmen who have been from the first conspicuous and lamentable failures and who, in a word, have proved particularly round pegs in particularly square holes.

But Adam Porter is • a horse of another colour.' And, unlike any of his predecessors that we can remember, he has commenced his term of office in a businesslike, common-sense way that augurs well indeed for the future. Almost his first act on coming into power was to take his fellow members up the harbour in order that they might see for themselves the various wharveß, the maintenance and control of wbioh form suoh an important feature of the work of the Board, and bo that all the members may be prepared to take an intelligent part in any discussion affecting these wharves that may hereafter take place at the Board table.

The members of the Board now know from • ocular demonstrations ' all about the wharves. This may appear to outsiders a small matter. In reality, it is a matter of very considerable importance, and it shows which way the wind blows ; it Bhows what a practical, level-headed man is the new chairman of the Harbour Board. If he continuea to conduct the Board business as he has commenced there is little danger of time and money being uselessly expended in the future as they have too often been in the paßt. I think Mr Porter may be trusted to take care of that.