GISBORNE HARBOR BOARD

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2152, 7 August 1907, Page 4

GISBORNE HARBOR BOARD

THIS TOLAGA BAY PETITION. Following is the text of a petition to the House of Representatives that is being signed in the Tolaga. I3ay district, with reference to the' Gisborne Harbor Board :- . 1. Your memoralists of the Tolaga Riding of of 2. The Gisborne Harbor Board is promoting a Bill for the authorisation of a further loan of £350,000 to be charged upon the ratepayers of the Counties of Cook and Waiapu, and the burgesses of Gisborne, for the construction of an outer harbor near Gisborne, in tho port, of Poverty Bay. 3. The Bill provides that the Counties of Cook and Waiapu together witli the Borough of Gi.sborne shall form a harbor district for the purpose of the collection of rates‘to be raised under the authority of the said Bill. 4. The Tolaga Riding of Cook County is situate on the East Coast, commencing about 15 miles from Gisborne and extending north about 8 miles beyond Tolaga Bay. 5. The settlers of the Tolaga Riding are served by small coastal steamers or schooners from Auckland, Wellington, and Napier, which use the port of Tolaga Bay ; there is no heavy road traffic from Gisborne.

6. The wool sent from Tolaga Riding is transhipped from the coastal boats in the roadstead of Gisborne. 7. The ratepayers of Tolaga Riding will therefore derive no present advantage from the construction of an outer harbor at Gisborne. They have never received any return from the Gisborne Harbor Board for the rates they have paid for twenty years. 8. Moreover, under the Gisborne Harbor Act of 1884, the fact that Tolaga would derive no benefit from the proposed harbor was partially recognised by making Tolaga pay a rate one-lialf of that paid by the remainder of Cook County. 9. Under the new Bill it is proposed that Tolaga should pay the same rate as the rest of Cook County. 10. No reliable financial data have been given tending to show that the proposed harbor will benefit the district, the figures adopted by the Board for that purpose are false or irrelevant and considered by the Chairman and others to be misleading. Your memoralists therefore pray: 1. That your Honorable House will refuse its assent to the proposed Bill so promoted as aforesaid l>y the Gisborne Harbor Board:—or alternatively. ' 2. That your Honorable House will cut out the Tolaga Riding of Cook County from the rating district as defined by the said Bill. 3. That your Honorable House will take evidence in the subject matter thereof, especially as to proposed unjust incidence of rate, and grant your memoralists such relief in the premises as to your Honorable House insty seem meet.