PARAWAI HIGHWAY BOARD.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 212, 13 June 1872, Page 3

PARAWAI HIGHWAY BOARD.

To the Editor o£ the THAMES GUARDIAN. Sir, — It is with reluctance that I crave space for the insertion of the following remarks on the leader of your contemporary of this day’s date. Of the animus displayed I presume to say nothing, but I am at a loss to comprehend why a journal, certainly the oldest on the Thames Goldfield, should, in a production bearing the imposing name of “ we,” so shamefully make use of the surje/cstio falsi as appears to have been done in the extracts quoted below:— “ Whenever men were employed by the Governmcntin order to relieve distress, they were sent to Parawai to work on the road there, while mining enterprises were being ruined, and enormous inconvenience caused to the public, by the neglect of vital roads in the district of Waiotahi and Xauaeranga."

“The rates of tho Parawai District amount to about £120.” >; The first quotation implies most logically and grammatically that men were employed on more than one occasion by the Government to relieve distress, and that they were sent to Parawai to work on the road there. Now, what are the facts gathered from the lucubrations of the journal in question. At a timo when the Thames Goldfield, with all tho eclat which could he added by spurious reports of rich finds, had very little employment for tho denizcos thereof. Meetings of the unemployed were held; celestial and terrestrial influences were invoked to mitigate the distress experienced by tho labouring community. The cry reached even the insensible T.8.G., and fortunately was responded to. Certain portions of tho unemployed were engaged weekly in the Knuaeranga District to improve the roads therein (not the Parawai), but as soon as these men came to tho Parawai boundary every effort wa made to prevent thorn doiug anything for that district. I defy your contemporary to point out another occasion when free labour was afforded to any of the highway districts. I admit that the insensate T.8.G., not being able to form the same idea as the Ivauaeranga District Board, did allow a modicum of the relief to the distressed to he expended ou a Parawai Road ; and is there any one, knowing all the facts of the case, can honestly blame him for thus relieving the necessities of men who have, perhaps, been more useful and more remunerative to the province than even tho illustrious “we ” of the Advertise ;v Besides, were any vindication of his Houor’s action needed, it would he 'found in the necessity for encouraging a trade which at that time received its full measure of approbation from the Advertiser ; I allude to the kauri gum trade, which, though now apparently ignored, for months gave more real support to the tradesmen and labourers of these townships than even the boasted goldfields traffic, and which, be it remembered, principally passed over the Parawai Road. The statement hazarded about the rates having been made in ignorance, I can afford to pass over with the remark that any journal descending to the position of special-pleader is liable—as in a recent celebrated case in the Court of CommonPleas, in Great Britain—to he covered Avitli shame and confusiou, to say nothing of the loss of prestige which it must experience from even its best friends; or the still graver consequence of misleading the public.—l am, &c., No. 33 Parawai.