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Dunstan Times, Issue 1062, 25 August 1882, Page 2

“It may be interesting to County ratepayers to know that although there has been a brief cessation in the battle between the Councillors as to the bestowal of the chairmanship, another big gun in the shape of a writ of quo warranto is now being charged by the Northern men, and will be fired into the enemy’s camp on an early day.” So says the Cromwell Argue, but in what particular manner it wil prove interesting we are at a loss to know. For our own part, we are in dined to feel disgusted, and we think a very large majority of the County ratepayers are of the same way of thinking, for the very simple reason that they have everything to lose and nothing to gain from the firing off of these big guns. Throughout the dispute—which has now extended over some ten months—our contemporary has never offered one conciliatory word of advice, but on the contrary has urged on the battle with the cry of “Death before surrender." Such a line of advocacy, the more especially at the present juncture, when the County structure—through no immediate fault of its directors, but rather through the advent of a fortuitous course of circumstances over which they had not the slightest control—is not in the soundest state, is, to say the least, simply sinful, and should draw upon the heads of its promulgators a well-directed I rebuke. Any line of argument that tends to divide a house against itself must cause it to fall; and such a catastrophe, we con- j tend, must at all hazards bo prevented. In

this matter as with several others within our recollection, the one feeling that appears to have actuated our Cromwell contemporary has been that of vindictive spite and hostility to anything and everything written or spoken, living or dead, below CroihweU Bridge ; but why such an antagonistic feeling should exist it is very hard to say, and we very much question if the results havo been such as was to have been desired by the majority of the inhabitants above bridge or to have met with their undivided approval. We instance the Railway Question,' and the Electorate Question. We do not intend to flatter the Cromwell Argus by saying, or even inferring, that by its advocacy the Central Otago Railway was shelved, or that the electorate of Dunstan was divided, and Cromwell quietly settled into a corner of the Wakitipu—with the main portion of which it has nothing in common, either politically or commercially—but to the most obtuse mi. d it must be apparent that by the district being divided the opportunity was given to the Government to quietly ignore the whole district insofar as railway communication was concerned, and if not ? why not ? to curtail what was bound to have been in the course of a few years a too powerful district if combined. There was no reason why the Central Otago Railway should not by this time be miles and miles in advance of where it is now ; nor was there any reason for the division of the Dunstan District, excepting for the want of unanimity ; neither is there any reason for the sub-division of the Vincent County and the merging of its dismembered parts into its adjoining neighbours, but that must he the inevitalde result if this bitter feud between North and South is kept up. Wo will offer no advice. The whole question is in the bands of the ratepayers ; it is for them to decide whether the big guns our contemporary so playfully alludes to are to be fired. We have heard tell, however, of unskilled soldiers being hoist with their own petards, and who can say but we may witness an illustration.