King Country Chronicle Saturday, July 9, 1910 TOPICS OF THE DAY.
So Parliament has assembled oncef again, . and the usual Address been/ read, aid the usuaj reply been given/' There is a terrible amount of time wasted in talk and more talk. Tljp Member for Taumarunui is quite rigst when he suggests meeting from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., or so, but unfortunately, that is only a part of a vlry vicious whole. There should be a splfabnegation society formed by sorne of i)ur more violent orators. Less ftalk and more work expresses briefly/ but truthfully what the average mkn in the back-blocks is thinking t|-day. Truth tp tell, if we probe him Jeeper, we shall find that the back-blo|k settler's faith in Parliamentary tions ia suffering an eclipsg if not altogether disappearing, lake that £250,000 bide - block raids vote,
Where has it gone to? It was announced with a great flourish of trumpets, and visions of smooth, wellmetalled highways running the length and breadth of the land rose up before the mental eyes of those of an optimistical nature. Had it been provided and spent, what a relief these suffering districts would have experienced! From all around us for a distance of fifty miles comes the wail over bad roads. The special article we published on Saturday gave a picture of the cruel position of the unfortunate settlers in the Tangitu block. The local bodies have little or no faith in promises. They want to see performance, and until the Minister for Public Works recognises this he estranges public sentiment in these sparselysettled, badly-roaded districts.
• As straws show which way the wind blows, so the organisation of the Auckland members, and the uniting of the North Island Chambers of Commerce, may be taken as indicating the tendency of feeling in thispart of the Dominion. If the Auckland provincial members, irrespective of party, can band themselves together in pursuit of the needs of the province, some hope of forcing the pace party in power is permissible. The trend of population is all this_way. Ours is largely an unsettled and undeveloped country. We want roads, good roads, more roads, and it is inevitable that we should have Government grants to assist in providing what is absolutely indispensable. The £250,000 annual back-block toad vote will therefore commend itself as one of the most urgent needs of the province. Admittedly, it would be largely, perhaps mainly, spent in the King Country. But it would bring a return in increased settlement and consequently increased stock, wool and butter production, which would benefit the whole of the North half of the island.
Two important conferences are to take place next week —one the ninth annual Dominion conference of the New Zealand Farmers' Union at Wellington ; and the other the gathering of representatives of King Country local bodies to discuss the needs and grievances of this great district. The Farmers' conference has a very heavy agenda paper before it, and doubtless many interesting subjects will be discussedd, and voted on. Questions of land tenure naturally occupy a leading place in the list and the purchase, disposal and rating of Native lands are amongst the most important. The proposal from Wellington: "That the time has arrived when Maori lands should be placed in the same position as the lands of Europeans; subject to the same rates and taxe9, and with equal freedom to dispose of their lands by sale, or lease, with certain reservations" will appp.al to all settlers in the -King Country as eminently necessary and urgent and one that should be heartily supported by everyone who knows anything about the difficulties under which our local bodies exist. There will be differences of opinion as to the best method of taxing and valuing land, and some interesting discussions are sure to eventuate. The conference will be found to approve of the defence legislation, but on questions of railway freights and 4he provision of sheep and stock trucks will express some decided opinions. •Numerous other remits will be discussed and the present annual conference seems destined to prove practical •and educative.
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King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 275, 9 July 1910, Page 2
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684King Country Chronicle Saturday, July 9, 1910 TOPICS OF THE DAY. King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 275, 9 July 1910, Page 2
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