PUBLIC WORKS.

Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 443, 12 July 1879, Page 2

PUBLIC WORKS.

(To the Editor of the Patea Mail.

Sir, —I wish through your columns to call the attention of settlors and townspeople in this district to the only means of pecuniary salvation in the present crisis of affairs. It would indeed be a work of supererogation if I pointed out to those who are now suffering, the extent of their calamities, and its increasing danger ior the future ; ruin is advancing toward ns with such rapid strides as to bo apparent and patent to all. But to those at a distance I would say —the most fertile district in New Zealand is being made destitute and poverty-stricken by the present wait-a-bit policy ; it is not enough that the Maoris should bo kept from ploughing our land, which was bought from a Government we thought able to justify the title by which they sold, and thus establish us. Now (as the Hawera settlers so justly say), the men who hold the frontier of this colony for the other colonists, should hardly be "allowed to starve; and we are starving. If we have to bear so many and great sacrifices for the good of all, it is a little thing that other parts of the colony yield some small point of precedence (if they have any), and allow Government to commence public works. Let the railway through the Mountain Road be at once proceeded with; let portions of the main line near each village be commenced, and the short branch lines from Kakaramea to Carlyle be something more than a vague promise for political purposes. Thus would the working population, now fast leaving us, be kept in the district, and the small sum of money set in circulation keep our tradespeople from the bankruptcy now imminent. II something of the sort is not done, I am certain that the wait-a-bit policy of the Government will have no foe so dangerous to it as the unfortunate

settler whom the timid line of conduct (bluster before retreat) of the reigning powers have made a desperate and reckless man.—l am, &c., SETTLER. ,f\ . ——