THE BOROUGH QUESTION.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 176, 30 October 1886, Page 3

THE BOROUGH QUESTION.

(TO THE EDITOU.) SlB. — Kindly allow mu a nhort space in your columuo to clear myself of the charge of inconsistency ngain.st me by Mr Quinn at the meeting in the Public HuU, la&t Satuiduy evening. The substance of MiQuinn'b accusation as I understood it, was that my recent action in opposing the forming of the Borough was inconsistent with the pait I took at a meeting held at the Hot Springs Hotel in Ma3 T last, on which occasion I spoke in favor of certain measures which I now make use of to condemn the movement for municipal government. He assumes, and rightly so, that I was then in favor of a boiough, but it was not such as the one now projected. When the meeting at the hotel took place it was generally believed tbat the new Municipal Act, Avhen passed, would admit of Te Aroha standing alone, and the existence of that belief is demonstrated by the fact that at a public meeting held afterwards in the Hall, a resolution was passed to have Te Aroha constituted a boiough, with 01 without Waiorongoraai. I was one of those who hoped that it wculd be constituted without

Waiorongomai, for, as tho Cliainnan of the 1 Improvement Committee (Mr Mills) and other members can testify I have never approved of tiny form of local government which included tlmt township and tho goldfield with Te Aroha. Long before it became known to what extent the revenue from the mines would be affected by the now mining- Act, J did not hesitate to express my opinion, and now when it is known what the reduction amounts to, I maintain more firmly than ever that the borough as now defined is a serious mistake. It has never been clearly shown in what way its different parts will profit 03' being- united. Under tho altered condition of things brought about by the new mining- act, this township lias nothing- to gain by being tied to the goldfield, for whatevei good the existence of tho field may be productive of, will be reaped to the some extent, by allowing it to remain in the hands of the County Council as by including it in the borough. On the other hand the goldfield is almost certain to suffer by being bound up with Te Aroha, for there seems at present to be very little probability that it will fare as well under municipal government as it has done while under the control of a body which hat* on all occasions shown a readj' willingness to assist its lesources. — lam, etc., J. A. DoBson. Te Aioha, 28th October, 1886.