POKENO-WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH IT?

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 615, 11 March 1921, Page 6

POKENO-WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH IT?

I_ (To the Editor.) Sir, —News of Poke no in your worthy paper is consistently . conspicuous by its absence. It is certainly not owing to the fact that startling events do not happen . here. Why only last week one of our settlers lost a cow, another one lost a pig, through trying to fatten it by artificial means, and a blackbird committed suicide trying to displace our soldier’s monument. Tragic happenings all and greatly regretted. Have you ever visited Pokeno, MiEditor? A district full of possibilities and attempted achievements, but peopled by a strange and varied people, slow to think and slow to act; even the Rabbit Act fails to move i them. Speaking of attempted achieve- | ments, if Pokieno had achieved only half of what it had attempted, why we would have electric trams running in Cameron Street and the Hotel Cecil on the cornei-. The public spirit displayed by our ratepayers is a thing ! to marvel at, and their- meetings, to i one with a sense of humour, provide as good an entertainment as Fuller’s Opera. Public meetings have., been called for as many objects <as a man j can recall, meetings called and opened with a blare of trumpets (human J ones) and enthusiastic speeches from the chair, resolutions carried with gusto, the object hotly discussed for days afterwards and then quietly forgotten. We have demanded a new post office and telephone exchange. Wc have insisted that the Main Trunk express stop at Pokeno, we have decided that a public hall be buijt, with the “movies” on show every Saturday j night, we are endeavouring to have a school erected : : n our township, and have attempted other things of a lesser importance too numerous to mention, but of all things attempted, Mr Editor, not one single object has been attained. Why? Lack of pub- > licity! Lack of co-ordination! Lack of organisation and agitation! but chiefly, sir, to lack of publicity. Public enterprise can never succeed without the aid of the press, and the sooner the Pokeno-ites wake up to this fact, the sooner will they obtain success.—l am, etc., COWPUNCHER.

(That is the spirit “Cowpuncher,” Keep your district in the limelight through the press and Pokeno will yet have its electric trams and Hotel Cecil. Send along something about ycur district every week—Ed. Times.)