PATEA BOILING-DOWN CO.

Patea Mail, 2 December 1880, Page 3

PATEA BOILING-DOWN CO.

Sin, —I am astonished that a gentleman of your experience should have been so easily gulled by your informant, whoever he may be, as to publish a statement re Patea Boiling-Down Co.’s works, which is utterly untrue : “ and the fact of its beingin the market was not supposed to bo known here.” If I mistake not, you had an advertisement in some shape in your paper, a local perhaps, in reference to the sale. The way in which the business was done was in no wise the business of anyone outside the company ; and as a company we have a perfect right to manage our own business in our own way, without reference to the Patea Mail or its informant, who appears grieved at not being consulted, You arc wrong in your statement that the rent is nominal ; it was sufficient at the time for undrained swamp lying idle, and is enough now for 15 years not 21, as you state.

You infer that the members of the company exerted undue influence with the Government to get the lease granted. It is well known, perhaps not to yourself that any other residents in the Comity could have got it. In fact, when the company was first mooted, the County was canvassed for support from the AVaitotara to Hawera for settlers employed in the sheep industry to co-operate in the venture which has been a pecuniary loss to the members, but of large indirect gain to the County.—l am, &c., On e of tiiic Members. [Note. —The tone of the above is too personal, but as the writer considers himself aggrieved, he lias stated his view of the matter in his own way. The company in question is a public one, and as such it had a certain valuable privilege ; but when tliis is sold to an individual for what it will fetch, the transfer appears o proper matter for criticism. Our desire is to get at the truth, and nothing else. That the company has lost money is to bo regretted. No advertisement or local bad appeared in the Mail—-Ed.]