The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Thursday, October 16, 1890. THAT REPORT.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 519, 16 October 1890, Page 2

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

Thursday, October 16, 1890. THAT REPORT.

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

No definite information has yet been received as to when Mr O’Connor’s report on the harbor works will be ready, but it is now positive that its contents will not be made known until after the nomination of candidates to fill the vacancy on the Harbor Board. It does seem strange that there should be so much delay in this matter, and it is hard to believe that that delay can only have arisen through an extraordinary pressure of other work. If Mr O’Connor had his way, and there was less Government interference for political purposes, the probability is that the report would long since have been ready, and the people be allowed, if they thought fit, plenty of time to take action before the summer months had expired. Hopes have all along been held out that the report would be ready every other week, but days, weeks, and months have gone by, and yet -the report is not forthcoming, and it seems ,is not likely to be forthcoming until it suits the Government to delay it no loriger. If Government had at first told us straightforwardly that the report would take months to cover the course of its incubation, the taxpayers would have been content to await, knowing that this procrastination must be endured, but the method adopted of putting the thing off from week to week, and month to month, naturally arouses suspicion, and people begin to imagine that there is some inscrutable thing at work beneath the surface. The forthcoming by-election would give an excellent opportunity of testing public feeling on the matter, if the taxpayers were aware of what would be the nature of the report, but the Government seem determined that the nominations must be made in the dark* A correspondent writes on the subject : a To the Editor Sir,—Does it not occur to you that the.delay in presenting Mr O’Connors report on the harbor works is sustained for no other purpose than. to serve some political end* An election is to be held shortly, and one vote on the Board may turn the scale in deciding upon any scheme proposed in the report, so that it seems to me the ratepayers will need to be wary of the Government tricks just at this juncture. If you will remember, no one could help noting the action recently taken concerning a Harbor Board election. The candidates were Captain Chrisp and Mr Johnston. I may say at once that I did not vote for the latter, because I considered the former’s nautical knowledge would make him an acquisition to the Board, but when that gentleman was defeated, I was much surprised to find that the decision of the majority was coolly overruled, and that Captain Chrisp, an agent for the Public Trustee, was quietly made a member of the Board, The member may be good, but the principle is far from satisfactory, and the ratepayers should be on their giiard against the Government in the matter of Mr O’Connor’s report. If that report was placed before us prior to the election—there can be no fair reason why it should not be—there would be an opportunity to make it a test question in the approaching election. If the report advocates a continuance of the work on some fresh lines suggested, and the money necessary can be obtained, the members will hardly dare take action without some expression of opinion from the ratepayers, or if they do take action without consulting them there are some who will at the outset take the most extreme action to prevent things being rushed through as they were when the present work was entered upon. It seems to me that there are wheels within wheels in this delay, and sensible ratepayers will do well to be careful as to how this election is pulled through. Mr Bennett’s opinions we could pretty fairly judge by the way in which he voted on various questions, but an unknown man may be dangerous-—I am, &c, Ratepayer.”