Page 2 Advertisements Column 2

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 534, 17 June 1880, Page 2

Taranaki Ratepayers are beginning to comprehend the true nature of the game of ducks-and-drakes which is being played at the New Plymouth “ harbor.” One local Rip Van Winkle has just woke up, and rubbing his eyes he asks : “ What are all the country settlers about whilst all the muddle is going on in connection with the New Plymouth No-harbor. Are they all asleep ? If so, I have an idea that ere long the Harbor Tax Collector will give such a knock that will waken them—then we shall hear such a wail far and near. Who’d have thought it ? Well it strikes, me that anyone might have not only thought it, but known it, who had not really been asleep since the whole thing started, or been misled by the very plausible opinions of our business men in the Town of Few Plymouth—men who have a good chance of making a good thing out of such a vast expenditure.” And so he goes on, fancying in his innocent way that it is the other people who have been asleep. A Seam of Coal is now visible up the Waitara river, just below the waterlevel, the abrading action of,the stream having cut through or into the carboniferous deposit.