OUR RESERVES.

Evening Star, Issue 3909, 3 September 1875, Page 3

OUR RESERVES.

To the Editor. Sir, —In your leading article 5u to-day's issue you justly compliment tin- Supermini dent, Air Macamlrew. noon l!ieffort lie is now making in the Assembly to gel; tln> education reserves of this Province vested in ti listen-; and every well-wisher of the cause of c.lneition in Otasro will endorse your remarks. In another portion, however, of your leader yon hardly do justice to, at any rate, a s> ction < f the Provincial Council, when yon say they have never sought to achieve this object Upon the Provincial Estimates for the present year was an item of IdU.OO'.j for the or-,ciion of school buildings, and upon the a Ivent of the Bastings Government to oliice it was made a prominent feature of their policy--a policy by the way which was stigmatised by the sapient Donald Reid as no policy at all -that the educational reserves should he Imthwitli vested in trustees, with powers to hoi row nuniey on their security; and it was forcibly pointed out by the Government that two objects would he achieved : firstly, that if it was true, as alleged by the Peid party, that the General Government would make an attempt to wrest our reserves from us. that, reding them in trustees would most eifoctually prevent tliis ; and secondly, it would relieve ilnordinary revenue of tlie cost of school buildings, wliich to that extent c.mhl he devoted, to the further construction and improvement of the various mads and bridges throughout the Province. Who was it, may I ask, who poohpoohed the idea, saying it was absurd and M > forth? Why Mr Donald Reid-—who opposed it not, as I believe, because the scheme was not good, but because had he approved < f it or any other idea of the Bastings Government, itwould have prevented his return to office, to achieve which I am strongly inclined to think Air Reid would have sacrificed even more important Provincial interests. This gentleman, previous to his advent to Provincial office, was an ardent Centralist, as was sufficiently demonstrated by myself last session by quoting his speeches from ‘ Hansard, ’ but since the Provincial Council has apparently decided that no Government that does not include him amongst its rank- shall be the Government of Otago Air Reid lias altered his views, and is now as ardent a Pi ov'mcialist as ho was formerly a Centralist, o pora !f <> mow ! 1 was much amused the other day upon reading the report of tinabolition meeting at Outr.nn to find Air James Allan, who has always been one of Mr Reid’s most devoUd foil owe is, using as a reason for delaying the abolition question, that the Provincial Council should meet again in order to vest onr educational reserves in trustees, the very thb g which last session he, at the bidding of hi.illustrious chief, opposed. Tins is anotlwr proof of the farsightedness of onr J'rovii ei.d Councillors. In my opinion, one of the blessings of the abolition of J’lovine so fai as Otago is concenter!, is that the power for mischief and obstructiveucss of Air Reid and his party will bo reduced to a- minimum. Although slightly diverging from the subject matter of this letter, who was it, may I ask, that nearly brought the ITovim.-e to ruin, and certainly l<> financial embarrass meut, but Mi Reid and his party, by obstinately, for I believe a period of neatly two years, refuting to bring land into the market under the I land reds Regulation Act? To whose miserable taeticr and blunders is to laattributed the sale of -">0,000 acres of some of the finest land in the Province, vi/„, in Ab a. Flat, at tso;.oe Ms lOd per acre, .some of uhuh would now lesd-ily sell at from L-'l to 1.1. The answer, again, must be Donald lb-id and his supporters. Could aijch a thing have happened under General Government eon'i-d .' I trpw not,—lam, &c., 11. -S. Fish, Jun.

Dunedin, -