Feilding Corporation and Manchester Block

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 70, 22 November 1884, Page 2

Feilding Corporation and Manchester Block

', TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAK. Sir, — Can you or any of the readers of your paper inform me on what terms the New Zealand Government sold the Manchester Block to the private company : called "The Feilding Corporation." Is ■ it true that tlie block was sold to them at a ridiculously cheap rate on the understanding that the company should make the roads through the block and intro- • duce settlers on the land ? If that is true how comes it that tlie construction of various roads through the block is paid ; for out of the settlers' pocket, either by rates to the Road Board or by a special rate under the Roads and Bridges Construction Act. Further, is it true that 1 the said private company is exempt from and does not contribute any kind of rates? If all these facts are true, it seems to mo ; that not only has the company managed to shirk their duty, but also to shift their burden entirely over on the settlers' . shoulders. If there is anything in our ; present system of local government cancelling their original contract with respert ■ to road making through the block, surely i there can be no law cancelling the duty ■ of tiie Corporation to pay their rates like other landowners. Perhaps the company's agent would be kind enough to clear up this mystery, as silence on these ' points is day after day doing more harm than good.— l am, &c, ' More Light.