THE RANGER QUESTION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1470, 20 February 1886, Page 2

THE RANGER QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — The proposal to appoint a ranger apparently has caused a flutter among some of the Geraldine ratepayers. What can they be frightened of. If your correspondent Ratepayer lias as much trouble us he asserts getting his cattle to the fair, he ought to be very anxious for the appointment being made instead of writing in the strain ho does, because fences in the dilapidated condition he describes would not be much use for keeping their owners’ cattle off the roads, and a few turns of the ranger would be the best argument that could be adduced to persuade them to get the five shillings’ worth of barb wire. But the fact is, there is a pretty numerous class who live by keeping herds of cattle and swine without making anything like adequate provisions for feeding them. Th ose cattle and swine are turned out ostensibly to graze on the roads, but in reality wherever they can find the best feed. Their owners are just as well pleased to see them among other people’s crops as anywhere else, if there is no danger of them being impounded, I do not doubt if Ratepayer had had courage to endorse his espistle ho would have been discovered to be one of this class. Any man with sufficient firmness can easily protect himself against those characters with the law as it is now, but there are a good many who suffer themselves to be jumped on rather than risk the abuse one has to submit to for interfering with the liberty of those wandering cattle. And besides, with our superabundance of Government and Local Government, it surely is not necessary for us to protect ourselves as if we were living in a heathen land, where there was neither law nor Government. Ratepayer can keep his mind easy about the Road Board spending his money on a Ranger. If Dan Guthrie’s 66 petitioners are ail bona fide men of the right sort —of the same calibre as some of them I have had to deal with—they will stand about five pounds each before they cave in, That would be L 330 from Dan’s squad alone. The Board can afford to give a Ranger a good salary, and have a profit out of the transaction. There is rather a coo! effrontery in people petitioning a governing body to assist them to defy the law. There can be no doubt that by passing the Impounding Act 1884 the Legislature intended that cattle wandering at large should become a thing of the past, and it certainly is the duty of a Road Board to see that the roads in their district are kept safe for traffic—and no person can ride or drive a spirited horse along roads where cattle ami pigs are allowed to stray and lay without being in continual danger. The Board has no more right to allow this danger to exist than to leave tumbleddown culverts unrepaired. It may be somewhat unpleasant for them to do their duty, but what their duty is is quite plain, and a man that has not backbone enough to do his duty is not tit to be a member of a public body.— 1 am, etc,,

¥m, L. Duncan. Kakahu Bush, Feb. 15th, 18^6.