"SETTING RIGHT."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 129, 26 June 1901, Page 2

"SETTING RIGHT."

TO THE EDITOR. Snt, —Thn story is told th it on r certain occifion when t!-e distinguished Herbert Spencer was putting up atari orJimry p ovincial boaidiug I ojup, a? lia left th« tibie afier having breakfast he g'i'i ulius landlady was heir.i to siy to iho-e s ill at the repast, " TnatV hi gieat writing body th>st has just lej f ; so much noised about! Lawd-a----m-j! Ho coinmaacjd his arguo-barguing '"ith me last night; but he nas not I ng m finding cut that I was one too m uiy for h m—l pretty soon set him right!" Almost a p.rail 1 instance of lie foregcing stagger was disp'ayid at O'io of our Rire.it corners s>mn while during the <im ) the loc il P .e s was udvo:ati )« the pr priflty of getting a Iresh loan raisid to meet the existence's of the growing tiade afc tht h a', our, and (o g> t tho mole ex-j eti'led Ar .t pije, here named Mr M, fr in somewh r" Sou hj, exclaimsd with lusty vtshem. be , "To pot with this tuW bing harbour . f )o.irs! Another schouio 1 lii-t is, I sor, for tnkiig tht) hard-eirt e! money oj' of we pocr farrn tv.' po kets 'o 'htow i.wiy on a lot of rmr gers-on about New Plymouth. Bu' t i.j I 1.11 ;ou plai', flc ul 1 only g6t a hold, in ii quiet rorner, of one of those -cribbling chaps, I w uld scon him i ight!'" Now, whatever might have been Mr. M's modus operandi for proselytizl ng one of thu Press remains obscure, as docs that of the U a. ding-1 houso mis'ress* Put what's unbodied in the fallowing levelition, one should think, would not he'p him mu'h. Some f 'Ui t e i years ago Mr. M wis anxious 'o sell his section of land, consisting of one hundred and sixty a res, at the ate of threa pounds ten shillings per acre; l.ufc still he sticks hard and fast 0 i 1", like a limpet to a r ck—refusing neatly four tim<s as much f.rit an what he wis desirous of s lling lo ■ then. And most asfur<-dly this phenomenal jump-up of prop r!y i-i duo in the l-iigest rae isur* to the harl-our which he, Mr M, so vilified. "Pooh, p:ob," may possibly i-e sniggered out by s>rae of Mr M's .uiigerers, "it's folely the but'er businss 'hat we've got to thaik." But wh ever thus reasons fails to see the data wlric'i intjrvene betwfen cause an ! c ns'quence. Say, would the butter bus.n'ss have be-'ii s-i early ini•iatrfd ; would it hive beeu so quickly dev lop«d; or would it hive reached anything Ike its p.'(sent proportions had not t'nis unju-tly maligned convenience offered special faci'iMes for ulativd < n'erprise ? It is not good form to underrate the bridge that his buue us aenss the turgid river. True, from the begioning onward mos' h inous blunders hive been made in the constructive woik; from the eight thousand - pound-never-utiliz 'd-beach-Urding-wWf on to the five-th iu-and-pound-baffling-sandpump; bu", withal, the per-on would not he gifted with -■ny i enrr.rkab'e fupd of perfp-cuity who wou'd siy that the harbour at New Plymouth has not been a boon to the bulk of- the people in Taracaki.— 1 am, etc., A. Hoon.