MR HESSEY EXPLAINS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9100, 28 May 1908, Page 5

MR HESSEY EXPLAINS.

(To the Edilor). Sir, —I find that a good deal of capital is being made by my opponent? in the present contest, over my liaving been away from some of the, Trustee meetings during last > ear, jn business affairs in different parts of the Dominion. I wish to point out several mattei-3 bearing on this point, that should weigh with the voters in favour of my candidature. In the first place I have never been absent from any meeting where any business of importance had to be dealt with, and have spared neither time nor expense in leaving my own business to travel to such meetings, and taken on the whole, my average compared favourably with sDme whose business does not take them from Masterton. As to my busi-

::css I h?.Y§ in the pisi 'sought not only my own benefl':, but the benefit of the people of Masterton, by the establishment of locally-owned ami controlled industries, that have resulted in bringing a great deal of money into Masterton, and will, I am confident, continue to enrich the investors here and advance the prosperity of Masterton. I have now managed to get these industries to such a state that only occasional visits will be necessary, and I can devote my time to the best interests of the Trust. I have served on the Trust for many years, to the best of my ability, and (my colleagues can bear me out) have stood out strongly for the erection of dwelling*.\of a better class than had previously 'been built or proposed. The new Town Hall was one of such buildings, and ,the twostnried building of the New Zealand Clothing Factory another, my insistence in the latter case being made use of by our M.P. to get a twostoried Post Office instead of the single-storied building originally proposed. I am in favour of an exchange of sites with the Government on a level basis, not for any payment to be made on either side. The Trust i 3 established principally for educational purposes, and should not be exploited by the Government under the specious pretext of payment of the difference in value of the two sites. - We do not want the educational usefulness of the Trust endowment to be hampered by burdening the revenue with debt. Any other educational work receives financial help from the Government —as the new Technical School for instance—and it ; .s unfair to demand payment from the Trust for land that is of no commercial value to the Government, when they are getting in exchange the only land that is useful for the Justice Department's purposes. It is too one-sided an arrangement, besides having a want of principle about it. —I am, etc., JOHN HESSEY.