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Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2313, 5 June 1886, Page 2

necessary for our contemporary to drag Mr G, Bebtham on the scene, The assertion made by our contemporary that we published tha return we gave "by special request," is absolutely false, Still we have no objection to taking the question on the personal lines suggested by our contemporary, and to say that we consider Mr G. Beetham at £26 a year a much hotter bargain as a member of a Waste Lands Board, than Mr Mc.Cardlb at £2OO a year, Mr Beetham's knowledge and experience of settlement is greater than Mr McCardle's. und he is equally earnest in a desire to open up the best land to small holders, Almost every sentence of our contemporary's article bristles with mis-statements. Take the following for example:—'• At the bidding of his masters he is compelled to attack Messrs McCardle and Reese, because their presence has had the offect of reforming the administration of the waste lands of this district." What we have said has been at no man's- bidding, The Wairarapa Daily has never been in the market like a certain other paper which has been offered at a price to both friend and foe indiscriminately, Surely our contemporary must remember the fact that his paper was once ottered for sale to Mr G, Beetham, and he apparently has never'forgiven that gentleman for refusing to buy it. The Wairarapa Daily is, and always has been, the only independent journal published in Wairarapa North, and the slurs which our contemporary seeks to cast upon it are vile calumnies. The statement that Messrs McCardle and Reese have reformed theadninistration of the Waste Lauds Board is an absurdity, unless it be taken to mean that they have trebled and quadrupled the cost of its administration. We know of no other change which they' have brought about, Perhaps as our contemporary has referred to Dr Newman, he will express an opinion on his statement that '/in Land Boards, for instance, the hon member for Tuapeka, a member of a Land Board, was drawing £l2 a mouth for his services, There were sittings of these Boards which cost £4O each, and there were gentlemen who got free railway passes and then charged travelling expenses. Why, one gentleiran could belong to five or six different local Boards, and charge expenses to each, though several Boards met on one day." We think we were justified not only in charging the Government as we did with extravagant expenditure, but also with dishonest expenditure.