Black Ingratitude

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 79, 20 December 1890, Page 3

Black Ingratitude

Mr Larnach, late member for the Peniusula, has published aa address, in which he gives the electors some very hard knocks. In referring to what he has done for the district, he mentions that he, and four others, gave the public the Forbury Park racecourse at cost price, not even charging preliminary expenses. He goes on to say that "When the land was worth at least £400 per acre I gave the land for the first school on the flat, half an acre I think, and a subscription towards the school buildings. I gave £100 towards the widening and improvement of the main roads of South Dunedin, and a number of subscriptions to schools and small libraries in the district. I was the means of getting funds for widening and making Anderson road ; for forming and completing Cargill road drain ; for forming and making the short road from Tahuna Park to Tomahawk at a cost of many thousands of pounds. I succeeded in getting Tahuna for this district, and in having built a drill shed in Anderson's Bay, and one also for Highcliff. I gave a quarter acre of land each to four different church bodies at Portobello, and one had a church built and furnished and handed over free of debt. 1 also gave a quarter acre to the Masonic body at Portobello. I gave £150 towards the Working Men's Club, hut in the Octagon, and £250 guarantee towards building, most of which I was called upon to pay. I gave £150 to found the first Sailor's Home, and lost several hundred pounds by getting the Peninsula railway extended to the flat. I inaugurated a carnival at my late firm's new factory building in Princess street, which lasted many nights, for the benefit of the Benevolent Asylum, having all the new machinery run each evening, and gas, etc., found at the expense of my late partner and myself. The result was that we handed over to the trustees for the asylum nearly £2,500, which is now helping to keep those inmates, who enjoy the privilege of voting. I have merely mentioned these few circumstances, not in any spirit of vanity, but to -show tbat neither the district nor the community around it have suffered through my long connection with it, and all; that I sincerely wish mow is that the district's future interests will be partly as well cared for. My late*, firm, I may state, during the many years that its factories w.ere^ operating, paid an average weekly] wage sheet of £ 1 , 200, or equal to £s<fr,ooo a year, and the greater portion of the workmen, lived in their houses son the flat. Who is and has been fch* real friend of labor ?