THE KAWHIA FORTY ACRE SCHEME.

Observer, Volume 5, Issue 117, 9 December 1882, Page 195

THE KAWHIA FORTY ACRE SCHEME.

The public will fancy they hare heard something about Kawhia before — about McLean and other people being there on one or more occasions — so there is nothing fresh in John Bryce knowing the place is in existence. The Government bought 40 acres of land there, we are told, some years since, which they are going lo turn into a township. The land was not much good, or Captain Fairchild would not have sold it. He simply said so. It was good enough to sell to the Government, but not good enough to keep. It has no deep water frontage, and no level surface. It is adapted to see the comet conflagration from, or a site for a gallows ; a lighthouse could be placed on it if it were " guyed" — which could be done very easily if the Native Minister, Lewis, and Wilkinson were cooped up within its walls. The harbour is to be " buoyed," we are told. But everyone knew this before. The truth about the whole affair is this, though the Herald, was not told — There is a new crop of Atkinsons and Rich,monds coming up that have to be provided for. Two stations are to be formed to find them sustenance — Mokau and Kawhia. H-enee the Custom House, the Lighthouse, and some Hursthouses.

People went to Kawhia about forty years ago. They have been going there ever since. A man named Ellis not long since kept a store there. He could not have been the man the Herald said had been employed smuggling. There are two or three stills at Te Kuiti — but none that we know of at Kawhia ; there are some mummies there, however, and the Native Minister may perhaps find himself contraband if he gets to Kawhia. Little Ironsand Smith, when he went to Mokau a few years since, found the country covered with peach trees laden with ripe fruit. Being a clever soul, and jovial withal, he made a worm, and with the worm made peach brandy by the anker, and all the people got drunk together. This was something in the smuggling line. Was this what the Herald heard about ? But that they smuggle things on the West Coast there is no doubt. Some of Atkinson's friends the other day smuggled about 180,000 acres of Ngatimaru land, and no one called out for the watchman or coast guard ; and now John Bryce wants to smuggle gunpowder into Kawhia, and other things as well.

The main thing hie wants to smuggle away, however, is our chance of a railway to Taranaki. He never wanted us to get that. He wants to smuggle another another route through Parliament. Your John Bryce is a notable smuggler. He smuggled Patetere, and though thousands knew he was doing it, he escaped unoaught. Did anyone ever hear of Marfrnotu-Kangipo-Moor-house-Studholme-Kernp iniquities? All that affair will be formed into a land company, and be dealt with in other money markets south of the Line. That is where the sunshine comes in. Is honest John standing in ? Quien sale. And from this reason the Queen of the North, is to be left with an unfinished railway. The honest man ttied to open the King Country, he said ; and when he failed, proposed to form a 40-acre township at Kawhia, whereat all the people are called upon to cry Hallelujah! Bah! the whole thing is too thin. If the Auckland people asked the natives, they would very probably do what Mr James Macandrew advised them to do — make the Hailway themselves.