The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published Every Tuesday, Thursday, AND Saturday Morning. Tuesday, May 27, 1890. THE HARBOR TROUBLES.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 459, 27 May 1890, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published Every Tuesday, Thursday, AND Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, May 27, 1890. THE HARBOR TROUBLES.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God's, and truth’s.

There is a very strong feeling against the Government in any way interfering in the Taranaki harbor difficulty, and the following extract from the Post will give an idea of the general feeling : — 11 We hope there is an error in the cable message which represents that Sir Dillon Bell, in the interview with the New Plymouth Harbor bondholders, expressed a hope that the land laws, of which complaint was made, would be altered. The Agent-General has no right to entertain any hope of the kind, but if he even was foolish enough to cherish a fallacious idea, he had still less right to express it publicly. He should keep it locked in the most secret recesses of his breast. The bondholders have evidently approached the Agent-General as the official representative of the New Zealand Government, and as such he should not hold out the most remote hope to them of the Government admitting that either by land legislation or in any other way the colony is in the least responsible for the default made by the Harbor Board. The Taranaki people have persistently tried to fix on the colony a liability for this harbor loan on the plea that the Board’s endowment of 25 per cent, of the land revenue was injuriously affected by the general land legislation of the New Zealand Parliament. On the other hand, Parliament has as consistently refused to admit the plea for a moment, or to accept a scintilla of liability. In this, Parliament has undoubtedly been supported by public opinion outside Taranaki. Sir Dillon Bell must be perfectly aware of what has taken place in the House session after session on this subject, and of the utter hopelessness of imagining that Parliament will admit its liability for this or any other of the Harbor Board loans in which default may be threatened, or that it will consent to exceptional land legislation for Taranaki, in order to benefit the New Plymouth Harbor Board at the expense of the rest of the colony. Sir Dillon Bell, as Agent-General, should not have given an appearance of approval or of sympathy with any argument put forward to throw responsibility in this matter on the Legislature. He should have made the deputation thoroughly understand the true position of affairs, instead of encouraging any fallacious hopes. We trust that fuller information will show that he did so, and that the

cable has misrepresented him.”

It is unfortunate for the Gisborne Board that its trouble has been aired just at the present time, because there is a tendency to jump at conclnsions which are not justified by facts, and we regret to say that the New Zealand Herald is one of those journals which has taken up an attitude which certainly would not be assumed with a fairer knowledge of the position,