HANGATIKI.

King Country Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 42, 9 August 1907, Page 3

HANGATIKI.

Settlers here rejoice in the fact that there has been a sum of £2OO placed on the Estimates for destroying willows in the Mangapu river. Of course the sum appears inadequate, but if that amount is voted and spent judiciously for a few years it will master the trouble of floods which interrupt railway and boat traffic at present, and it will also be the means of adding thousands of pounds to the value of the district by making it' possible to reclaim large areas of swamp and waste land, which is at present subject to floods caused by the willows rising the flood level. A Government survey party has just cut out the beautiful and muchadmired'piece of bush stretching along the Caves road on the north side between Hangatiki and Waitomo. The Native owners are not satisfied- with the proceedings, although they know well enough that the land will be paid for by the Crown and neither the land or the bush is of any commercial value except as a Scenic Reserve. The survey party had a lot of annoyance towards the end of their work through Native women trying to prevent them from working. It is a connudrum to a gallant young man when an old lady of sixty summers persists in sitting down on the exact spot where a peg has to go in. As soon as the survey was finished the Native men came forward and started to chop the bush. Of course this is a bit of ill-displayed spite, and will not do them or anyone else any good. The Natives here are not fond of work, and some of the men engaged now in chopping this bush were never known-to work so hard before. What puzzles people is the apathy shown by the Government, and it is wonderful how tolerant " the powers that be " are to the Maori. The Hangatiki Public School building is now being erected by Messrs Good and Gordon, of Matamata, and it will supply a much felt want when completed. Courted by the last few days of genial sunshine the willows are beginning to indicate the approach of spring ; but the grass, less susceptible to nature's untimely mood, js still lying chilled and dormant. However, the season has been kind, and before long the siege of winter will be at an end. A local wit remarked some time ago that " Hangatiki was getting more like London every day." Indeed, it would seem so. A motor bicycle was parading our crowded (with mud) streets when it stopped. This was not remarkable had it gone on again, but it refused. Out came screw wrenches, etc., but it still objected —tableau.