RAGLAN MAIL CONTRACT.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 2862, 15 November 1890, Page 2

RAGLAN MAIL CONTRACT.

Our Whatawhata Corraspoudent writes It was with considerable surprise, not unmingled with rejrret, we learnt that Mr Charles Sutton had lost the contract for the carriage of mails between Hamilton and Raglan, and that the successful tenderer was a Maori. Mr Sutton has had the contract for some years, and was beginning to be regarded as an established institution. It was rather a shook to hear that we were to go back to the old days, with Maori mailmen, and the feeling in this district is decidedly against it. While it is only right that all public services, like that (if carrying mails, should bo let by tender, there should be some discretion shown, as to accepting suitable tenders, and iu an important services like this, the liue might be drawn at Maoris. It would not matter so much, if it were merely a matter of carryiner the mail bags. But in the Raglan service, during eight months of the year a passenger coach has to be run by the contractor for the convenience of the travelling public. This arrangement has been of groat benefit, not only to the Kaglan district, which is fast coming into favour as a healthy watering place, but also for Waikato residents, who, with their wives and children, patronise this summer resort largely. If the Chief Postmaster, for the sake of saving a few pounds, hands the service over to Maoris, we may expect to seo this traffic seriously, if not altogether, checked. A petition has been sent from Kaglan, and one is now being largely signed in Whatawhata, to the Chief Postmaster, urging the unsmtability of a Maori contractor for such an important mail ser-

vice, and also testifying to the admirable manner in which it has been cariied out by Mr Sutton,