PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 1881. CHARITY IN POLITICS.

Patea Mail, 31 March 1881, Page 2

PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 1881. CHARITY IN POLITICS.

Having got more than its share of railway money, the Patea district ought to hand over a portion to help poor neglected Taranaki. We have been growing fat at the expense of Taranaki, because the railway votes have been nearly monopolised by Patea. Wc have been robbing that ill-used district every year since railway work began. The grievance up there is that Major Atkinson does everything for Patea and nothing for New Plymouth. He admits, when questioned here, that we have had more than our share in everything ; but how does he or how will he meet that question at New have to answer for -what he said at Patea. He condemned himself by admitting that he had been over-feeding this end with “ everything.” Then he must have taken the money from his Taranaki supporters—so they have been saying. Ho may try to show, with that peculiar dexterity which so puzzles Mr Lett, that the money came not from his dear friends at New Plymouth, whom he wouldn’t rob of a hickapenny, but from those over-fed people in the South, whom it is a virtue to bleed in the interest of Taranaki. That will make things pleasant—until the Major is questioned by Southerners in the HouseThen he will have to show that the large excess of “ everything ” which has been feeding and puffing up Patea has been taken not from Taranaki, nor fiom the South, but has been a misunderstanding all round. It will be explained that when the Major said Patea district had had more than its share of everything, he meant that an unsettled portion of that district had been a continual trouble to the Government, and that reckoning the whole expense of maintaining soldiers, opening roads through the Plains, and making a bush railway from Taranaki, the Patea district had had more than its share of public money.