The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, October 27, 1910. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 910, 27 October 1910, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, October 27, 1910. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

A ead was once tormented by his play fellows on his meanness. Whenever he received a penny, instead of spending it on sweets, he put it religiously into his money-box. He did not resent the cruel “barracking” of his companions. On the morning of his mother’s birthday the little fellow secretly emptied his moneybox and invested the whole of his savings in a present for his maternal parent. That boy is built on right lines. How often do we accuse people of being closefisted and mean. Sometimes the rebukes we hurl at “ skinflints ” are well-deserved. It is well to remember that the miser does not possess his money, but the money possesses the miser. Others, again, like to bleat their giving from the house-tops and so preen their vanity. But the giving we like to read about is on the principle above mentioned. The member for Wairarapa, Mr W. C. Buchanan, is a hard-headed Scot. He can drive a bargain and expects the conditions of the bargain to be carried out to the uttermost farthing, He is a wealthy man —and a bachelor. But behind his rugged commercial keenness lies a soft nature. His gifts come as a surprise and on a big scale, yet plenty of people call him “a mean man” because he does not fritter his money on the temporary sweets. His objective in giving is to create a lasting benefit. Here is a characteristic letter offering to assist suffering humanity, addressed to the Chairman of the Wairarapa Hospital and Charitable Aid Board: “Dear Sir,— You will, I daresay, remember that the question of a home for incurables in the Wairarapa district was alluded to at the conference which took place some time ago at the Greytown Hospital between several members of the Hospital Board and Dr. Valentine, the Inspector General, and at which I was present. I have given this matter some considerable thought since, and, after further consultation with

the Inspector-General, I now offer to defray the cost of a home on the Greytown Hospital site, of sixteen beds for incurable consumptives. Trusting that this may meet with the approval of your Board.—l remain etc., — W, C, Buchanan.” How few among the wealthy in this country realise that they are but stewards of the wealth they control ? An Auckland message also brings to light another public benefactor in the person of the late Mr J. M. McDachlan who conveyed to the Auckland city the Cornwallis Kstate of 1800 acres on Manukau Harbour, as a public park. The site was the scene of the settlement of the immigrants by the ship Brilliant in 1841, among whom was Mr Mcßachlan’s father. These gifts have their lessons in a lesser or greater degree and demonstrate the difference between the fool and the wise man.