THE TAUMARUNI ELECTORATE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 157, 9 December 1914, Page 3

THE TAUMARUNI ELECTORATE.

To the Editor. Sir, —No clearer exposition of and justification for the reasons which actuated the electors of Taumarunui in turning down Mr Jennings three years ago, and which will actuate them in denying him their suffrages at the forthcoming election has yet been published than that contained in your leading article of the '2nd inst, if the same be properly analysed. Let me say here that it would be unjust and ungenerous on the part of fliia /political opponents to deny the truth of the encomiums that you bestow gb Mr. Jennings' efforts to ameliorate the disgraceful conditions under which i the greater part of his constituents f live. But the trouble is, a proper con sideration of your article clearly shows, that Mr. Jennings has been too devoted a follower of the party whose maladministration in the past has been the cause of those very conditions ho so earnestly yet unsuccessfully strove to remove. Knowing as you do and as you admit in the article in question the past and present conditions of things in this electorate, you must admit that the results of Mr Jennings' efforts were poorer than even the most sceptical could have expected. It is now twenty-five years since the Awakino portion of the King Country was thrown open for selection, and yet there are settlers in that district who have not yet got reasonable access to their holdings. It is now fifteen years since a start was made to settle the more inland portions of the King Country, and yet there arc settlers there still suffering undor the very disabilities you so eloquently depict. You admit your cognisance of the terrible | sufferings of the womenfolk ami the terI rible wastfi of the settlers' resources on I account of the sani<! lack of means of transport, which you speak of as "be ! ing always out of reach though constant ly promised in the near future." Promised, as you know, and then denied by a Government whose apparent security of tenure rendered them careless of their duties. You know, and none tetter, of the unceasing but futile efforts of the i Press and local bodies in the district to j bring about a specific performance of, promises, of the trouble that county councils have had to obtain even a portion of promised grants from the late Liberal Ministry during years when money was cheap. You must also be aware of the sad deterioration that is evident in many of the hard-won clearings for want of the finishing touches that can only be given where adequate roading facilities arc provided. You have for years displayed an accurate knowledge of these things, and have constantly used your pen in the endeavor to have grievances redressed, and you cannot deny that if the many millions of debt which were piled up by the Liberal Govvernment had been expended vrith a view to the proper development of the country's hinterland, and the development of its with a view to the increase of production, such a state of affairs as exists in the King Country and other bush districts to-day could not be. Knowing these things as you do, and knowing that the return of the Liberal party to power must render inevitable a continuance of the very conditions that you eondemn, your appeal to the electors to return a candidate pledged to support that party is not logical, or else it is true toHlav as when Plutarch said of the Greeks of ancient times, that men are so blinded by partisanship that to obtain the political advantage of the moment they will sacrifice the future of their country.—l am, etc., WALTER W. JONES. Mokau, December 5, 1014. ('We frankly admit that justice was not done the back-blocks by the past Government. For that reason, if for no other, it deserved the set-back it received in 1911. The present Government came into power with the specific promise that it would remedy the disabilities of the back-blockers. What liaS happened? It set out to raise over three millions for duplicating suburban railway lines, erecting palatial station buildings, etc. The lot of the back-blockcr has not been eased one iota. The Liberals have ha-1 their lesson: the Reformers are in need of theirs. —Ed.) ,