CORRESPONDENCE.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 126, 5 March 1879, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents.] —o—(to the editor of the temtjka leader.) Sib, —In your issue of March 1 appears a letter from Mr Win. Postlethwaite, in which the writer acknowledges that he misstated the acreage of the Geraldine Road Board District, and therefore its power to get constituted into, a distinct county, and explains the source of his own error, and states that this occurred "at a public meeting held in Geraldine to consider the advisability of adopting the Counties Act or otherwise." Now this deserves notice, since the fact is that no meeting for such a purpose was ever held either at Geraldine or JL'iti-ani. The Geraldine meeting was called by Mr Postlethwaite without any requisition being sent to him, and its asserted and published intention was " the cousi leration of 'separating that riding from the Geraldine County." At this meeting Mr Postlethwaite, the convener, occupies the chair, and putting aside the legitimate business, he argues, advocates, instructs, and succeeds in getting a resolution passed to the end that the Counties Act may not be adopted. The statements by which this meeting was influenced appear to have eniinated a'most solely from the Chairman, and were

1. That tho money loss to the County of some L 12,000 was not a loss, because although Government would have had to

pay it, and had and did continue to pay it to the adjacent counties, yet Government con id not afford to pay it except out of the loans, and therefoie we ought not to wish to receive it, an instance of selfdenial which amounts to sheer folly, unless Mr Postlethwaite means us to believe that the refusal of Geraldine to receive the money due to it under the Counties Act will lead to the reform of the Colonial Government policy. 2. That a scheme was contemplated by the County Council and the Milford Harbor Board for raising and expending the County funds on Milford Harbour. Now, not only is such a scheme impossible, and beyond the power of the County Council, but it is so utterly uotvuc and unfounded that it ought to be regarded as a cowardly slander against both the Council and the Board. The words used are well calculated to produce an effect on a meetingheld at Geraldine ; they are—" The Temuka contingent are so hot about that monstrous job, the so-called Milford Harbour, that they will do anything in their power to get other people's money to spend on it." These words were given as a quotation from a letter which the Chairman of the meeting said he had received on the subject, and I think that we ought to know who was the author of them.

3. That the Government intend to bring in an Act to give Road Boards increased powers ; this has been shown to be erroneous by comparison •with Colonel Whitmore's speech in the Legislative Council on August Bth, which rims thus :

" They had accepted the county system, and it was only fair to carry it out in its entirety. They could not perpetually have this conflict of authority between Road Eoards within counties and the counties themselves. In the parts of the country where these large Road Boards existed one body or the other must be entitled to have the superior authority. Considering the interests of the whole colony, and jiot of the particular districts in which these large Road Boards existed, he was of opinion that it was their duty to support the county organization, and give all the higher duties to the counties. It would be found that it was only possible to carry out the local government of the colony upon a uniform system, on the principle of giving the higher functions to those bodies. They had already by law almost all the administration in. the parts of the country where they existed, and what the Council were now called upon to do was merely to remove the old Ordinances and consolidate them into a single law, placing in the hands of the counties the administrative authority formerly exercised by Provincial Councils. This authority never existed in the Road Boards. It was the counties that had taken the local administration previously exercised by the provinces, and it did not appear to him that the Road Boards had the smallest ground to demand that they should exercise such an authority as this."

4. That the Geraldine Road District comprised an area of 250,000 acres, and could therefore be formed into a distinct county ; this lias dow also been shown and acknowledged as an error. We find then that the circumstances under which the meeting at Geraldine was induced to pass a resolution against the adoption of the Act were deceptive ; that they will not bear the light of examination ; ana that the resolution was passed under a mistaken idea of the truthfulness of the arguments advanced in its favor, and I think that Mr llardcastle ought to consider it with care and ascertain its true value. Mr Hardcastle said in his speech at that meeting, that " he had heen elected hy the ratepayers of the district with the understanding that he should support the bringing of the Act into force." Ami since this is certainly correct, he may well now be called upon to consider how far a resolution passed at a meeting, under the pressure of statements so erroneous and misleading, will justify him in breaking the understanding on which he was elected. I am, &c, C. C.