PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1880. ROBBED AGAIN.

Patea Mail, 27 November 1880, Page 2

PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1880. ROBBED AGAIN.

What lias become of the £50,000 voted last year “ for roads and works ” in the North Island I A return was moved for by Mr Hamlin last session to show how the money had been apportionde. The return reached us yesterday; and though wc can find no reference in it to Paten County, there is an item of £461 17s for “ laborers’ wages, &c.” on the Mountain road near Stratford. This portion is described as in Taranaki County, but the information is superfluous, for it follows in usual course that if £SOO were allotted to the Mountain road, the money would be spent on the Taranaki side of the boundary. Such is life. Now this return confirms what has been alleged before, that the County of Patea has not had a shilling of the fifty thousand pounds voted for “ roads and works” in this Island. Can any party politician say the Government have treated us fairly and equally ? Will any party politician say we are not justified in protesting, time after time, against glaring neglect of our fair claims to equal division in public works? To say that the Mail opposes the Government is shallow nonsense. What we oppose is not the Government, but its mistakes. The men who form the Government are nothing to a journalist who tries to be impartial. He cares not for one set of politicians more than another. Ho looks at the policy—at that and nothing else. It is so in this case. This ignoring of Patea interests is not an accident: it is a habit. It is the result of lop-sided representation. Our interests are promoted only so far as Taranaki does not object to the particular thing we want. Whoso voice advocates our claims as a district ? Whose voice opposes our claims when they clash with Taranaki jealousy and selfishness ? Do we we get an equal share of anything ? It is of no use blaming some particular politician who professes to represent

us but doesn’t. He is honest enough, as politicians go. He does his best for two things—for a quiet life and for Taranaki. He couldn’t work for us if be would, because his first and last duty is to Taranaki. There’s the rub ! It is not the man’s fault. It is the system that is bad—unworkable. Patea district should bo cut off from Taranaki district, and bo given a separate voice in Parliament. Give us that, and the Patea people will be able to take care of themselves. Give us a member who is not jockeyed by Taranaki, and the Patea district will try to work out its destiny without robbing its neighbors.