A STUPID MUDDLE.

Feilding Star, Volume XXIV, Issue 158, 6 January 1903, Page 3

A STUPID MUDDLE.

Telegraph.Presß Association. Ccmyngbt Masterton, This Day. A peculiar complication exists at Nireaha, a few miles from Eketatahuna. The settlers in the Stirling Block applied for a school about two years ago. The application was referred to the Inspector, who reported in favour of closing the school at Nireaha, and erecting a larger school in a more central position. After receipt of a protest by certain settlers, a committee of the Board was appointed to visit the locality, and the Inspector's report was backed up. Eventually it was discovered that the proposed site had," in some mysteri•ous way, been applied for as a cemetery, and been actually gazetted as such. This step appears to have been taken at the request of the Nireaha Ratepayers' Association. The curious part of the whole business is that though the cemetery was apparently obtained at the instigation of the Nireaha Ratepayers' Association, none of the settlers appear to know anything about it. The object seems to be to prevent the contemplated removal of the school. Considerable agitation is now taking place in the matter, and a petition numerously signed introduced to Mr Hogg, M.H.R. (who, also, was in complete ignorance of the gazetting of the section for a cemetery), asking power to prohibit burials in the cemetery until reported on by the Health Officer, and alleging that permitting burials to take place there will prove injurious to the public health as the population increases.