WESTPORT HARBOUR BOARD

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16037, 30 January 1920, Page 3

WESTPORT HARBOUR BOARD

QUESTION OF ENDOWMENT. (Per United Press Association.) WESTPORTj, January 29. In reference to the Press Association message regarding Westport HarbourBoard deputations to the Prime Minister, the Westport News strongly attacks the statement of the Hon. Herries that the Westport Harbour Board has no moral claim to the impost placed on revenues from railway and wharf. The net revenues from these were granted under an Act of Parliament in 1884 for specific purposes, namely the making and equippng of the Westport Harbour Board, and on these securities the Harbour Board has borrowed monies amounting to <£850,000. The effect of the Government’s impost is to nullify the endowment, as the Board receives nothing of the impost, but has to pay all additional expenses in the way of wages granted to the men on the section of railway, and the wharf and harbour staff, also all the increased cost of material and upkeep. Mr Massey’s statement that the non-receipt and these extra charges was not the only cause of the Board’s financial difficulties, hardly states the position correctly, for the Government has the power under the Finance Act to increase the impost, so that if the go-slow policy at the mines had not reduced the earnings of the railway, the Government, under the Finance Act, could have made additional imposts on the revenues that would have still left the Board impoverished. The News contends that the legislative action in giving the impost to the Government instead of allowing it to go to the Board as part of its revenue, introduces a pernicious principle that, unless speedily removed, may be applied equally disastrously to the endowments of other public bodies.