CORRESPONDENCE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume VII, Issue 261, 24 April 1889, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

■ ♦- ■ — .We are not responsible for the statements or opinions of correspondents. TO THB EL'IIOR O* THE MANAWATIT HERALD Sib, — I have just read your leading article on the Public Works Amendment Act, or rather the suggestions made by the Horowhenua Council, nnd it appears to me that you have not given that consideration, possibly through want of time, to the amendments that you usually do. The whole tenor of your notioe is that the Council seeks to obtain too much power over private property. The fact however, is that the powers proposed to be given by Government in the amendments they air- t culated, are far more, viz. to give local bodies power to compel a landowner to eradicate furze and sweet briar over tbe whole of his property vide nection 10. This the Council objects to as being too arbitrary for the reasons given in paragraph lof the roporfc. . Thistles, however"/ are difierent, no owner can grow them and keep the seed on his own land. The bylaw made by the Council has up to this worked well and been well received by the majority of ratepayer* -wjio fully recognise the necessity of preventing them spreading over tho County from Otaki. The cost to Local Bodies to keep them off the roads in not heavy but tbe hardship the Council are seeking to remedy, is this, that just round Otaki there are some sections or blocks of lands that are neither owned or occupied and we want power to cut the thistles down certainly at the expense of the ratepayers in the first place, but also to recover the cost against land. Experience has proved that the hardship of the bye law is, when one owner cuts the^m down on his land whilst on the section next him they are growing and supplying him with a fresh crop of wed. No one can help him because the land is neither owned or occupied. . These variagated thistles are very different from the common thistles, and I venture to express an opinion that the landowners in the Manawatu Council will yet regret that no attempt has been made to keep them down in that county, into which I saw them coining from Bangitikei two years ago. With regard to falling the bush a chain wide on each side of a road, the Council take no credit for suggesting this, as it was first made in the Manawatu Times,' a journal published in a bußh country, which Foxton is not, and should be able to apeak with some authority, on the matter. Thr< settlers bush is rarely damaged by the road, a* the itun&l pvflotjxp i« to fall and olflaf

the bush on the road ISMs,' not' burn it,- and I venture to say that no Mtti&nda setter' who wants a road and is rated wttild objkct &fto; B iis only the land specuk&i? and. absentee/. You suglgefti ifnWfliqeal Bodies have already certain powers #{//&%&* to keep Bi?ck off the roads granted, but it is' ito* a- very saissfactory way by rangers. HoW often have I read reports of meetings, &c, ifl (he Maim* WATT HSbald, in which the rang*? has: teen, slated for not doidg his duty, or «lsefor doiti§ few much, and again for pounding; some one's tidiikf and not putting anothers in because they hetotiged to a friend. Then there have been casee ht which the ranger's own cattle have been out on the road. If the ranger is so satisfactory how is it that on all stations the boundary keeper or ranger is done away with and fencing substituted/ It appears to me that the bona tide settler, especially the small one, will not object to thfa any more than the chain of bush. The larger onea might, sometimes suffer if this law, suppasjng it becomes so, was administered as you suggest. But I have never yet heard of a !>ody of men elected by the ratepayers who wot?W try to ruin another ratepayer. The large* holders are generally able to take card or themselves, though not always, I must aa' rait as a case, not a hundred miles from Foxton occurs to me, in which a large holder was compelled to join something he. did not wish to do. This, however, was not done by a local body, but by the mamajority of the ratepayers. You say" a comparison between the areas affected in Boroughs and Counties by such a provision would show the difference. ; Still the Borough has the power to order one side to be fenced, and this as you proved in a former article re new townships is very much less in proportion than the road front' • . ages in town sections. As far as my know- v ' ledge goes I have never heard of this power being abused in any Borough, why then should it be argued that local bodies outside would be so likely to do it. They are all elected and therefore answerable to those

who elect them. I have doubt that to an absentee or land speculator these proposals are not agreeable, but to one who resides on his own land and intends to really work it. there will be no hardship. With apologies for taking up so much' of your valuable space. " -."»■« » I am, <fee., John Kebbell. [We are obliged by Mr Kebbell's letter, as all public questions are best discussed. We have had our say and shall not reiterate our objections to the amendments proposed by the Horowhenua County Council, but when the amendments only proposed to stay the power of local bodies in one instance, and grasped for power in six other directions, as enumerated in the report from A to F, the opinion Mr Kebbell states that we had formed when writing our article " that the Council seeks to obtain too much power over private property," is a fact beyond question.— Ed. M.H.]