The Temuka Leader THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1883. THE PROPOSED BOROUGH COUNCIL FOR TEMUKA.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1095, 19 April 1883, Page 2

The Temuka Leader THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1883. THE PROPOSED BOROUGH COUNCIL FOR TEMUKA.

Some time ago a meeting was held at which a coramitte# was appointed to obtain signatures to a petition to proclaim the town ot Terauka under the Municipal Corporations Act, and arrange other preliminary matters. About a fortnight afterwards we saw two members of this Committee going about whh a petition, and we know for a fact that they scarcely met with a refusal. Still it appears that the interest with which the public entered into the proposal did lot act as an incentive to the committee to expedite matters. We believe that little if any has been done since in the matter, and that the project hangs fire, not because the people are not read y to sign the petition, and gladly accept the responsibilities attached thereto, but because the Committee are so apathetic that they will not take the trouble of asking the people to sign. This is simply a thing to be ashamed of, and it is to be hoped that the conduct of the present Committee will not be forgotten when anything requires 1® be done again. The people ought not heap honors on them when they do nut appreciate them, nor inflict duties upon them which they do not feel disposed to fulfil. We think the best thing the Committee could do now is to resign, and let better men go in their stead. If they had acted properly they would have adopted the suggestions made at one of the preliminary meetings. That was to raise a subscription for the purpose of defraying the preliminary expenses. If they had done this they could have employed a man to go round with the petition, he would have done it in a couple of days, and everything would hare gone ‘ as merry as wedding bells,’ This was not done, and the result is that it is very doubtful whether some of the Committee will not have died of old age before their labors are completed. In two mouth’s time all the publican’s, and auc tioneor’a licenses will come out, and these will be lost this year through the apathy of the Committee. It is hard for Temuka to prosper while its leading men are so apathetic,

DRAINAGE,

Geraldine is very much in want of drainage. There is at the back of the Bank of New Zealand, a cess pool sufficient to poison *ll its surrounding-!. It would take very little to drain tins, in fact there is no town in New Zealand easier to drain than Geraldine, It stands at a considerable height above the rivor, and it would only be necessary to run a few channels through the town to take all the filthy putrid matter that so often is the cause of disease away. If this matter is not attended to the result will be that an epidemic will some day break out and then perhaps Geraldine people will awaken to the necessity of attending to the sanitary arrangements of their town-

THE LANDSALE DUMMYISM. Messrs Philip and William Young, of Clarence, Tasmania, have written a letter to the Hobart Town Mercury denying the charge of being dummies at the recent sale of lands in Otago. After stating that the grounds for the charge are that they paid by a cheque of the New Zealand Agency Company instead of their own, they go on t( SB y We left here and arrived at Dunedin ten days before the sale, and received such information of the land we bought from friends who know it thoroughly, as made it unnecessary for us to inspect it carefully as we otherwise would have done.” What a very easygoing, confiding pair of innocents these two Tasmanian land speculators must have been to be sure. How it would charm the heart of a Montague Twigg to meet them. They came all the way from Tasmania to buy laud, they had ten clays to look about them in Dunedin? but because their friends told them the land was good they did not think it necessary to go to see it. Is there a man in his right senses will believe this story ? They have just supplied in this the missing link that was necessary to show that they were not bona fide purchasers, but dummies brought over specially by land grabbers to secure the land for them. We cannot believe that any man would come from Tasmania to buy land, and when he reached here never bother about seeing it. Hie thing is absolutely unworthy of credence, and we must say indeed that it was a highly ingenious way of evading the responsibilities attached to making a declaration of being bona fide purchasers They are Tasmanians, and cannot be followed into that colony to prosecute

them for making a false declaration. It is evident that better laws are necessary jn relation to land.