OHINEMURI-A NEW VIEW.

Thames Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 1909, 3 December 1874, Page 3

OHINEMURI-A NEW VIEW.

To tlte Editor of the THAMES ADVERTISER

Sib, — Your plain, straightforward articles concerning the opening—or rather non-opening - of this very long-promised land, have been perused with extreme satisfaction here. As you are possibly aware, I have never ceased to maintain that, had the General Government desired it, the country could have been opened and "settled"ages ago. Apart from the fact, then, that the leeches in the Native Office are well aware that the opening of this district will sound the death-knell of pakeha-Maorism in New Zealand, there are other (reasons which have occurred to me, and which I have not yet seen noticed by any section of the Auckland press. Towards the close of last session, the present Ministry, as : everyone knows, took a violent dislike to provincialism in the North Island, and the extreme penalty of the law will be carried out upon it next year. Now, bearing this in mind, it will at once become evident that if Ohinemuri was opened before the death of provincialism and gold to be found there, the impetus that would be given to trade in general throughout this province, and the direct benefit to the provincial treasury in particular, from the export duty on all such gold, might , once again make provincial institutions favourites in the public mind. No one knows this better than the astute ..Mr , Vogel and his henchmen, Dr. Pollen and Sir Donald McLean; and when I further point to the disgraceful delay in not opening either the Drury section of the •' Waikato railway or the Kaipara portion,., of the northern line,.l think I have said sufficient to show your readers how this province has all along been neglected' by the present paternal for some ulterior object. But there is a, : , silver (if not a gold) lining to every cloud; and it is to be hoped, when the day of reckoning comes, as it will shortly in the form of the general election; the diggers of the Thames will, in the real knightly fashion of the days of yore, return a Eoland for the dark-skinned Oliver of Sir Donald McLean, Q.GMG.-l em, &0., ! F.H.Tbouj, . Auckland, Nov. 30,1874