THE RABBIT QUESTION. "Harapipi" on "Fair Shot."

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2223, 7 October 1886, Page 3

THE RABBIT QUESTION. "Harapipi" on "Fair Shot."

TO THK EDITOR. Sir,— ln " Fair Shot's " letter in to-day paper he says, "What right has Harauu to interfere ? As it was a matter tha did not concern him, he hart bettor let i alone." I acknowledge that I have n personal interest in the rabbit question. I j nad I ne\er should have written, but th fact of my having no interest is a sure rea son that I, above all others, was the mai who should have his say in it. I was neu tral, therefore I was impartial. Interest o: no interest, every man, woman and chile had a business to interfere in a public scan dal, and the sooner "Fair Shot" and al others in the same position realise this, the better for them. "Fair Shot" has perfectly ignored everything I said in thai letter. The subject m dispute he ha.s ne\er touched upon. When you have a bad case, diaw attention away from the subject, heap on abuse so as to hide the real question. I think that it was a great public mistake to kill the rabbits on Te Rore flat by a man paid by the Government. The rabbits were doing no harm ; no person was complaining about them. Instead of them being an evil they were a great and good bounty from nature. That flat was a gieat paying flat, no mistake about that, for you had neither to reap nor to sow, plough nor mow ; all profit, and no expense for bonedustor seed. Struggling industrious settlers made many a pound off it, which helped wonderfully to help them on these bad times. Mr Editor, surely this was a good thing, and these rabbits instead of an evil were a Godsend. These industrious settlers of independent minds striving to earn money in a honourable way, striving to make a home for themselves and children are undermined, and their ground cut under their feet by a paid Government man. The absurdity of the thing is that these settlers were killing rabbits for nothing and doing good to themselves, and this Government man gets a high pay for what the others were doing for nothing. The settlers also were killing twenty for every one the paid man was doing. One would think that they should also have been paid twenty times what the other was getting. I still adhere to the statement that in this province the rabbits cannot becom# an evil of any extent, and that the evil would and does cure itself. I hay« proof that it is so. If any one thinks otherwise if he will write me his reasons I will write him back and give him my proof. I would never have heard from " Fair Shot if it had not been for a second letter I wrote, in which I stated that the inspectors should be rat inspectors. lam still of the same opinion, that if they would destroy the rats and let the rabbits alone they would then earn their money. This rat inspectorship was a sore point with the outside inspector, and it is an open secret that though " Fair Shot" did the penmanship, an Auckland inspector did the dictation. I think men like these ' inspectors, who are earning their money as ' they do, need not be so very nice. Before ' I close, there is one thing in " Fair Shot's" I letter that I cannot see through. He says { he has a claim upon the Government. ' Heavens ! What have Oldham senr. and 1 Oldham junr. done that entitles the f younger to have a claim? I can quite 1 understand how Sir Henry Havelock had a t claim. His father in a measure saved the f Indian Empire. I wrote some time ago f saying that Vogel had demoralised men's minds. Little did I think that there would d Boon be proof that I was correct. Here a a Government man puts his son into a billet a that is a scandal — a scandal from the very a way he fulfils his duties, besides being a ° gross job at the first— acd they imagine * they have a claim. Oh, Vogel ! It's time a you were disrated, and all Government c strokers brought to their senses. — I am, a etc., ii Harapipi. » [Our correspondent is in error; "Fair tl Shot" is not identical with Mr Oldham. s< —Ed.] of