PUBLIC MEETING AT PIGEON BAY.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 421, 3 August 1880, Page 2

PUBLIC MEETING AT PIGEON BAY.

(from our own correspondent.)

A public meeting, possibly the most important one ever held in the Bay, took place on Thursday evening last, the 29th of July.

Its object was to consider what steps ought to be taken to retain the present mail service, and the present steam com raunication with Lyttelton.

T. 0. Hay, Esq., who was called to the chair, explained the object of the meeting, and then called upon T. Menzies, Esq., of Macintosh Bay, to explain to the meeting how Government, in carrying out the called-for retrenchment, threatened to discontinue the subsidy towards the present mail service by steamer.

After Mr Menzies had spoken, Jas. Hay, Esq, in proposing that a deputation from this Bay and other places interested in the continuance of the present arrangements be appointed to wait upon the Chief Postmaster, Christchurch, remarked that the discontinuance of the communication with Lyttelton would have "a very depreciatory .effect"on property"in tho district, lowering its value at least'lO per cent., and he further "showed that daily mail service to Akaroa by Pigeon Bay could be had at a less cost than by the present arrangement. pHe thought the inhabitants of Akaroa and places en route were quite as much interested in the matter as the residents in Pigeon Bay. Mr H. H. Fen ton, Akaroa, called the attention of the meeting to the unfair manner in which the Peninsula had hitherto been treated. Amongst other matters as regarded the making, etc., of roads, more especially when it was borne in mind that the making of one - chain of road on the Peninsula cost more than more than ten chains on the Plains.

* Alter the opinion of the meeting had been.prettyfreely.expresßed, it was ultimately resolved, to appoint Messrs Mer»zies> Pitcaithly.and Hay as a deputation fo lay before the Chief Postmaster the claims of the Peninsula upon the Government not merely to the present mail service, but f nrthermore to an enlargement of it. These gentlemen were recommended to endeavor to procure the settlers from other interested places to co-operate with them. The meeting, notwithstanding the un-, favorable state of the weather, was exceedingly well attended. I am sorry that circumstances prevented me reporting this very important meeting more fully.