CORRESPONDENCE

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2226, 1 November 1907, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE

[Corresjioiulonco on public matters is welcomed at all times, but it must bo distinctly understood that this journal is in no way associated with the opinions of its correspondents.]

THE O’DOWD CASE. [To the Enrroit.] Sir, —1 must- beg leave to protest against the attitude taken up by “Enquirer” in this morning’s paper. I, too, have spent some time in the local hospital, and can say that the .insinuations made against the matron are entirely un,warn:uited. My experience, and I think it is the experience of otliens, is that a kinder ■or more considerate matron than MAss Stewart could not possibly he obtained". I believe in speaking o’f people as 1 find them, and'the matron and all tho stuff treated me as well as if 1 bad been in my own home. Don’t you think, sir, you have been a trifle hasty ill accepting tlhe words of every Dick, Tom, and Harry who tiffin k they have a grievance against the Hospital and in bricking them up. AVouldn’t it have been as well to make sure of tho facts? —I ain. etc., “ANOTHER EX-RA TIENT.

[ln referring to tlio above matter we took up the attitude that a case had been made out for a public dnr qnirVi stating that if tile facts 'as set forth by Mr. O’Dowd proved to bo correct 'they constituted a most .serious indictment against all concerned in the control and management of the Hospital. We understand that a committee of the Board is at present fully investigating the matter, and reserve further comment until it has had an opportunity of reporting.—Ed.] THE CHIEF JUSTICE AND THE TARANAKI FARMERS. [To the Editor.] Sir, —It is only charitable to suppose that iu levelling against the ■farming community of Taranaki the very serious charge of child slavery, Sir Robert Stout was not giving ■the result of his own personal experience in that locality, but was simply voicing a report which for years lias been persistently repeated by Taranaki’s unfair critics. I shall be much surprised to learn that Sir Robert has ever set a loot on half a dozen Taranaki farms. During a residence, of many years in that part of the Dominion I never marked his presence. I have a lair knowledge of this country. During the last 24 years I have been constantly engaged in travelling from one end of New Zealand to tlho other, the backblocks and farms being my chief sphere of observation. I can truthfully claim an iiitimaio knowledge, running through several years, of almost every farm in Taranaki. With this knowledge at my disposal I have much pleasure in stating the report of child slavery in Taranaki to be absolutely without foundation. The community in question lias been recruited during the last few years from nearly every part of the Dominion, and it seems monstrous to suppose that farmers should lose all parental feeling, and become dead to every prompting of humanity simply because they had come within a certain distance of Mount Egmonv. Taranaki boasts more well-to-do farmers, more comfortable homes, produces more athletes, and employs more extraneous labor than any other district of -its size in New Zealand. The children are proverbially healthy, and. considering the terrible roads along which schools have to be approached, the children compare favorably in educational matters with their confreres. Finally, i.t is well to know that the Chief Inspector of Schools for Taranaki reported favorably on the dairying-in-dustry in its bearing ou education. It is well known in all parts of the world that country settlers, old and young, rise earlier than do' those of the towns, but in all that appertains to country life Taranaki is no exception, save and except in the hardships which the settlers encountered in the roadless back blocks during tlio early days of settlement. Sir Robert Stout seems to think •that the dairying industry gives an abnormal value to land; the reverse is the case. In Taranaki and Southland, the two great dairying centres of New Zealand, land is much cheaper than in the grain-growing districts of Poverty Bay, 'Marlborough, •and Canterbury. Kindly allow me to give tlio origin of tliis oft-repeat-ed libel about Taranaki: For years past the Evening Post, of Wellington, has been devoting much of its editorial space to diatribes against the much-maligned district, while space has been also freely given in the correspondence columns to every idle loafer who thought fit to give what lie called his experience. To the other side of the question the Post gave short shrift. It is very doubtful whether the editor of the Post ever saw that, province he so diligently vilified. Last year I ventured to say a few words in favor of the Taranaki farmer, but my letter was mostly suppressed, and wliat appeared was mutilated paraphrases, mid held up to the ridicule of the Post’s readers. Incidentally I had called attention to a far more degrading form of child slavery in tflio street of the capital, in the shape of little girls of tender years who on all weathers were, selling papers in the streets till a lute hour in the night. This the Post contradicted, but on the following evening I took the street at'v.3o and bougjht four copies of the Post from. girls, the last purchase being precisely at Q» p.m. On each paper I wrote the name, age, and address of the vendor. I Carefully filed those papers. I also filed .a copy of next night’s issue, in which it asserted that. the previous night (the one on which I was making my purchases) tlio inclemency of tho weather was beyond anything known for years.—l am, etc., D. O’SULLIVAN. Gisborne, Oct. 31.