CABS AT ADDINGTON SALEYARDS.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9116, 29 May 1895, Page 6

CABS AT ADDINGTON SALEYARDS.

TO THE EI I 'OB OP THE PRESS. Sib, —I understand that a complaint has baen made by the cabmen working the Saleyarde about the competition they are subjected to. at my hands. In reply I would like to ask them, Why they have not started a drag on this free road before ? It is absurd that while the public can for 6d be conveyed to Samner, they must pay 2* to be carried to Addington. The cabman's fare from belt to belt ia Iβ, and for this lesa distance they ask 2s. They complain that they cannot make a bare living at, it is. Well, if half of them could be removed from the Baleyards I think the rest would do very well at Is the journey. Let them send six cabs to the Sadeyarda, uot thirty or forty. The rest of the men could tarn their hones oat to graze until & more

busy time, ana they could grow vegetables on a .quarter-acre section, which with a house can be obtained at 3 per cent, on original outlay. This would give them employment in the slack time, if they followed the Chinese system. Aβ for taking my land under the. Land for Settlement Act, I would be only too glad if they did. But under the present law it cannot be taken for settlement by the Government. But if the Government "will guarantee the rent I will cut it up for them myself. I am renting 3000 acres laud, whichti3 practically Government land, between Lyttelton and Port Levy, and am willing to hand this over to them if they will give mc 2s an acre above the rout I am paying for improvements, or if the Government pay mc for the improvements I will give up .i»y lease. Peopie complain about makiug a living in Christchurch. Let them work like the first settlers did forty years ago, aud they will not oaly keep the wolf from the door, but will be able to lay by a nice little sum in case of accidents. Numbers of the early settlers had to tramp over three hills, each higher than the bridle path, with 50lb of butter on their back each time they went to Christchurch; aud now this younger generation cry out to take their lands from ohetn, while thousands of anres go begging for settlement. My own 6500 acres was, ten or fifteen years ago, rougher than any land to be bought now, and it was only by hard work that we brought it into its present state. Anyone whose land is not one quarter cultivated should be transported to some place where he can live like a savage, for it is simply a case of too much whisky in some.—Yours, &c, George S. Flemixg.