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Marlborough Express, Volume IV, Issue 202, 6 November 1869, Page 3

We cannot let the remarks of Mr. Ward, relative t ourselves, pass without briefly noticing them. He is guilty of deliberately

libelling the absent, as well as misrepresenting what we stated. What we did say was as follows ;

“ A Drainage Act is urgently required for the whole of the Wairan Plain at least. Few persons will be found unwilling-to contribute for such useful purposes as conserving our rivers, and draining the low-lying places, but these can only be done by united efforts, and to be effective must be compulsory also. The area to be benetitted is large, and the extent of the contributory should be in like proportion. The great objection raised against the operation of the late Act was that it proposed to tax properties up the Plain, outside the lands flooded by the rivers, but it appears to us that since it is from the immense water-shed that the inundating waters come, the lower lands have a direct claim for help and assistance in preventing their overflow.” —The sentence was hurriedly written, and was clearly meant to convey our opinion that no great injustice would have been done if the suggested boundary (the Waihopai river) was a little too far up the plain, since the object was to prevent the swollen rivers from above overflowing their banks upon the lands below ; and we might have gone further, and contended that it was a Provincial work, and not a local one at all. The question apart, we shall continue as we have in the past, to support what we believe to be right, and oppose the wrong whether the parties be Mr. Ward, Mr. Eyes, or any other man.