The Feildign Star. THURSDAY, JULY 9, 1885. At a Distance

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 12, 9 July 1885, Page 2

The Feildign Star. THURSDAY, JULY 9, 1885. At a Distance

These exists in every community a class of well-meaning but feeble or narrow-minded people who have a blind faith in the virtues of an article brought from a distance — the longer j the better— and the inferiority of any thing grown or made in their own immediate neighborhood under their very noses. The language of erery nation teems with proverbs exemplifying this remarkable idiosyncracy in human nature. "Distance lends enchantment to the view " is the most comprehensive and poetical of all these, while it expresses the meaning in the best language. An American lady must have her robes and dresses from Paris, although dressmakers and costumiers quite equal to the French ones are living in the same street. A North Island Maori of the good old times would cheerfully sell his relations or commit murder that he might become the possessor of a piece of greenstone from the West Coast of the South Island. The farther inland it was obtained the greater its mana, or power, and consequently its greater value in his eyes. Tet he could obtain material at his feet on the sea shore, or in the lava beds of the extinct volcanoes near his home in the interior quite as useful for lethal weapons. i So with some of our neighbors. Small matters which could be arranged by local talent are put in the hands of legal gentlemen in other settlements. Little jobs which could be done by tradesmen on the spot are sent away to a distance. One man we know of has been fretting himself into an early grave because he could net send his chimney away to be swept, and if the writer had not suggested in a friendly way that he could get a man from Marton to do it, death must have ensued before many days. In atf young communities, where each and every settler is so much dependant on the others for existence, mutual support and encouragement should be freely given. It is not only a good thing to do; it is wise and prudent, and it pays. Vanity has a good deal to do with this evil or folly, for it is quite as foolish as sinful. It is foolish, for it sends money out of the place, and it is sinful because it is not doing to our neighbor as we would be done by. Let us suppose that a butcher sends to an adjacent township for his boots. Mr Butcher cannot be surprised that the bootmaker deals with anybody rather than the tradesman who declines to recognise the necessity which •btains for reciprocity. And so on with every other branch of business. When work is to be done^the local tradesmen should at least have the first offer. If they cannot do it employ people at a distance, but not till then. This is apropos of certain printers' work which has occasionally to be done in Feilding. During tile past year or two a habit has grown up among a class of hawking about a small job by offering it at our printing office, and then going to another out of the district and stating the price of the local office, with the result that the latter loses the job, because the non-resident does it for a few pence less. Our annual expenditure in the Borough may be counted by -hundreds ' of pounds, "'which contributes towards the business receipts

of every storekeeper or tradesman, directly or indirectly, while the concerns that are put in opposition against us do not spend one farthing, but draw a good revenue, for which they give no return. Looked at in a manly and straightforward way, certain actions on the part of individuals having the expenditure of local money, collected for local purposes, in their hands, who have gone out of their way to put past us certain printing work into the hands of strangers, is very disheartening, and apt to give one a very low opinion of human nature. We hope this will be the last occasion we will have to refer to the subject.