A MERRY MEETING.

Patea Mail, 23 September 1880, Page 2

A MERRY MEETING.

The Committee of the Agricultural and Pastoral Association would do well to give effect to a happy suggestion that a dinner should be held on the day of the annual show. It need not be made too grand nor too expensive. We are farmers, most of ns, and want only farmer’s fare—toothsome, and plenty of it. A dinner on a moderate scale would bring together the representative men of the West Coast, and be a pleasant form of “ merry meeting ” once a year. Some interesting speeches might be expected from invited guests, among whom the Committee could include prominent politicians connected with the district, carefully avoiding partizan preference. So much interest attaches to this West Coast from the fact that it presents a native difficulty in process of solution, and a rich country just opened to settlement, that the present would be an excellent opportunity for calling public attention to the agricultural capabilities of this part of the colony, and affording scope to one or two Ministers and leaders for sending their powerful testimony to all parts of the colony through the medium of the press. Speeches from Major Atkinson, Mr Bryce, Mr Ballance, as political representatives of the district, and other local men of capacity and influence, would do much to bring this district into active notice. This West Coast is too much regarded as a terra incognita, a land of brown skins and bush, over which the Parihaka Prophet reigns in mystical supremacy. The colony hardly realises the grandeur of the heritage it possesses in the unopened lands on this West Coast; and we may even say the importance and value of the settled parts of the district need bringing into public prominence. We should be unworthy of the advantages wo possess, and of those which are opening in the near future, if we did not feel a just pride in proclaiming the substantial progress which this once wild West Coast has made during a few years of secure settlement.