FOXTON

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5091, 18 July 1877, Page 2

FOXTON

(from our own correspondent.)

It appears from the letters you have received that my remarks on the movement for the division of the Manawatu County have given offence to the manager and sub-agent of the Peilding Corporation, It is satisfactory to be able to record that your Peilding correspondent has admitted overlooking the Gorge ferry and the road from Stoney Creek to the Gorge. Now, on the day after the estimates were really considered and passed, Councillor Halcombe wrote finding fault with the chairman for putting down £BO under the head of contingencies, when part of that £BO was already really due, and he does not tell you that the day before he wrote he was present at a meeting of the Council, when the sum of £314 wasvoted for the said ferry in his own riding. The small item for the road from Stoney Creek to the Gorge, which your correspondent admits overlooking, is £llO. With such admissions I do not think there is any need of my noticing any more financial details. Mr. McArthur’s letter, published in the same issue as that of Mr. Halcombe, does not also allude to these items. This gentleman complains about any portion of the Awahuri to Peilding road being charged to the “ northern ” ridings. Why this road benefits scarcely anyone else, and I can well recollect the outcry made about this road before the railway was made. It was the only road by which access could be got to Peilding, and now it is the only way by which the timber and sleepers can be brought from Peilding to the main Hue to be carted to Rangitikei, as is being done at the present moment, and yet the member for Manawatu in his letter has the —— (well, I won’t call it by its right name) to state that his constituents “ will never seek to use it, either to import their supplies, or to export their produce.” Moreover, is it not by this line alone that the member for Manawatu will be able to obtain the gratification of one of his pet desires, viz., the making of Peilding into a grand central mart, to which little outlying townships, such as Sandon, must eventually send their produce. That is Mr. Halcombe’s expressed opinion. The settlers in the Sandon district think, however, otherwise ; and prefer to be connected with the port of Poxton or Rangitikei. Great stress is laid upon the fact of the county having taken over certain roads, and that the maintenance of these causes moneys to be diverted from the ridings in which they have been raised. This was foreseen by a member of the Council, but did Messrs. Halcombe and McArthur offer any opposition to such taking over ? The principal road through the county is centrally situated, being the old Provincial Government main line from Palmerston to Bull’s. It passes through a great portion of thinly-settled country, and this year swallows up £965 of county revenue, benefiting every riding but Poxton and Otaki. As the country on each side of it gets settled, the increase of rates will materially contribute towards the expenditure on such road, and cause the diversion of moneys from other sources to be dispensed with in a very great degree. As in the letter of Mr. McArthur I am accused of suppressing the amount of county revenue, and that which the would-be separationists contribute towards it, I will gladly give them now, and take them from his own letter. He says the total revenue is £4355 19s. 7d., and the contribution thereto of Manchester and Kiwitea ridings amounts to £1655 15s. Now the expenditure applicable to these ridings, is somewhere between £llOO and £I2OO, leaving a sum of say £SOO due to the two ridings if the moneys raised in each riding were to be spent in it. Knowing that in a new district where the centres of population are wide apart, and in which a new system of local government was being instituted, difficulties in the apportionment of moneys are often experienced, I fully expected that some general resolution bearing upon such would be brought before the Council; but such has not been the case, and I would like Messrs. Halcombe and McArthur to state whether they have at any time protested in the Council against the apportionment of moneys by the Council, and whether they have not generally acquiesced in such apportionment. I mean, of course, at the sittings of the Council. If they have been dissatisfied at the way in which the Council voted moneys, have they taken legitimate means of expressing such dissatisfaction ? It was acknowledged by the members at the last meeting that the Mauawatu Times gave very full reports of the meetings, and vainly have I searched its columns to discover anything in the shape of a protest against the apportionment of rates, &c. Doubtless they will bo able to prove to the Government that

they have done so, and failing to get redress they have been compelled to apply for separation. Things have altered wonderfully with them since Councillor Halcombe asked to be allowed to have another member for Manchester riding in eighteen months’ time, and threatened to meet a refusal with the cry of separation. Although that was but a few months ago, not a third of the eighteen months having expired, now we have his deputy lamenting that a readjustment of representation cannot do them any good. If it could do them no good now, what good could it possibly do them in twelve months from now, and this latter is the date that Councillor Halcombe acknowledged must ere he could obtain the increase of representation which he sought for ? ■ The separation movement was (at least so it was stated by Messrs. Halcombe and McArthur) started on the question of representation ; new it is based on the ground of abstraction of revenue. Who have been the parties to this so-called abstraction? The application of the word abstraction, of which so much is endeavored to be made, is a taking awiy against some one’s will or consent. Now, when Councillors Halcombe and McArthur complain that they have not got their own, can they say that they have not got all the moneys they asked for ? This is rather an important question, for if they did_ get all the moneys they asked for, they either have no just cause of complaint and are openly acknowledging that they have neglected the interests of their constituents, or they purposely abstained from asking for more, in order that they might strive to bolster up a rotten cause by publishing the amount allotted to their ridings. ' Allotted though, by whom by themselves. Until Messrs. Halcombe and McArthur can show that they asked for moneys, but were refused them, do not let them make use of such words as abstraction. The two letters referred to are to me further proof of my assertion about the real issue on the separation question. I am not more interested in the future welfare of Pox ton than in that of Palmerston or Feilding. All I wish to see is fair play, evenhanded justice, not such fair play as was shown by the member for Manchester when he met the emigrants at Halcombe not long since, a full report of which meeting was given in the Rangitikei Advocate, in which the manager of the E. and C. Corporation did not apparently feel very comfortable, that is if the Advocate's correspondent or reporter gave a correct version of the meeting. Our counties are not a whit too large, and I am glad to notice that in the south they favor large instead of small counties. If my last question is not satisfactorily answered, it is possible that I may have to ask a few more. One in my last remains unanswered yet. The little steamer Napier, so long trading here, having been sold, we shall miss its captain, who, by his urbanity and numerous acts of kindness has made himself a general favorite.