PIAKO SWAMP.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 179, 29 July 1903, Page 10 (Supplement)

PIAKO SWAMP.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —My attention has been called to some mistakes in your Wellington telegrams with regard to the Piako Swamp. What I stated, and also had it written, of the lithograph hung up in the members' lobby was that the Waikato Lande Association property which was formerly known as the Piako Swamp during the Parliamentary debates in Sir Fred. Whitaker's time was not the true Piako Swamp, as it did not drain into the Piako but into the Waikato river, and was twenty miles away from the Piako Swamp that the Government proposed to drain, and which is of a much superior character. The mistake of confusing these two swamps is very common. Even one of the Ministers of the Crown, when I spoke to him about the matter, said: "Ah, yes; that is the swamp that the train passes over between Hamilton and Morrinsville on the Waikato line." I informed him that he was as bad as the rest of the members in their ignorance of the position of the swamp, and he had the lithograph in his room for a day or two to become thoroughly acquainted with the true position of affairs. It is gratifying to know that there is a sum of money to be placed on the Estimates as a start of carrying out the drainage works under some comprehensive scheme.—l am, etc., P. E. CHEAL.