THE BEAUMONT MEETING.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 393, 23 September 1874, Page 3

THE BEAUMONT MEETING.

I {To the Editor.) SlB» — Your report of the Beaumont meeting caused me fully to commiserate with your reporter, who had to attend it. Apparently there is not one of the arguments adduced by the speakers which does not smell strongly of selfishness. The eloquent bnt l-ather narrow-minded opponents of Messrs Lancaster and Co., seemed to have talked themselves into a somewhat mistaken notion that they are not only the settlers in a certain district, but that they are the embodied public of Otagb. They "raise their voices against the scheme, because their speculative genius confines itself to the few bags of oats they might sell to some unfortunate waggoner stuck in the almost fabulous mud close to their homesteads. The present road to the Dunstan goes over a long series of hills, i which to obviate would be impossable, if it | is not done by the road projected. The new I road coming out at the foot of the last of these hills, would obviate all of them and proceed on a level plain beyond Roxburgh. The next object offered is as invalid. Mr. Bennett informs the public that there is no country opened by the proposed road ; now allow me to inform him that even to my knowledge (although that may be very superficial), there are several very good sites for settlement on both side 3of the river, which would have been taken up long ago, had there been any road to them, and which can only be rendered accessible by the road projected by Messrs. Lancaster and Co. To say the least of it, it is a very poor way of encouraging private enterprise the people of the Beaumont are persuing. Mr. Lancaster and his pai-tners ought to be the very last men the Beaumontites should attempt to thwart in any enterprise. He as well as every one connected with him has ever shown himself not only alive to his own interest, but to the common interests of all the people living in the district. Were the few personal enemies he has (and "Who is "without them), to forget their private squabbles and to look to their own interests as well as to the benefit of the public they would do better. — I am, &c. Jheemiah Snooks. Roxburgh, 19th September 1874.