The Feilding Star. Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette Published Daily. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1905. THE OROUA SEAT.

Feilding Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 108, 2 December 1905, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette Published Daily. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1905. THE OROUA SEAT.

The electors of the Oroua distnot have had opportunities given them of hearing Mr F. Y. Lethbridge render an account of his stewardship during tbe last Parliament. To all reason-, able and unprejudiced men such account can only be looked on as eatisfactory. He has not only been a faithful servant of the electorate, but a meritorious representative of the Colony as a whole. Although of necessity a party man and in opposition to the present administration, his career has never been marred by bias, and he has invariably done the right thing where the best interests of the he represented and those of tbe Colony were concerned. Even his political opponents in the gouse have always looked upon him as a typioal Member who well deserved their esteem and respect for his strict probity and his high sense of political honor. It has been alleged that Mr has not done so muob as he might have done for tbe benefit of the settlers in £He backblocks. Tbat is simple nonsense. Ever since Mr Lethbridge became connected with tbe local bodies of the dißtnct, whether the Feilding Borough Council, the Manchester Boad Board, or the Oroua County ( Council, he has always strenuously 1 worked for opening up tbe country with new roads, and what the residents and Mr Lethbridge have done in this respect is a credit to all concerned, seeing that they have borne, and efeill bear, nearly the whole of we cost on their own baoke.

Very little help indeed have they received from the Government. In the course of his Feilding speech, Mr Lethbridge pointed out that the Government bad no system m making grants for settlement. It was their duty to go into the backblocks, see what roads were required, have ' an estimate made of their actual cost, and what the parties benefited could afford to pay in tbe form of rates. The present method of starting a . road and leaving it unfinished is a ridiculous waste of money, and an aggravation to the would be settler. The Local Bodies, whose members as a rule have great experience in the matter of opening new country by I road making, ought to be entrusted with the task of expending grants in aid of settlement, and they would do it much better, and at half the cost than when the work was done under Government supervision. Mr Lethbridge is a strong supporter of close settlement, and believes that every man should have the right of freehold if he is in a position to take up land under that condition. On all other questions of general policy Mr Lethbridge is equally sound, and we are convinced that next week he will be placed where he deserves to be— at the head of the poll. The other two candidates, Messrs Hornblow and Pleasants, are both fit and proper persons to represent electorates in the Colony, but they have not the same claims on the suffrages of the Oroua electors as Mr Lethbridge, whose long and faithful services deserve their reward. They also stand as warm supporters of the Government, which fact is undoubtedly against them in an electorate which contains so many residents who are dissatisfied with the methods of the present administration. However, as they are both well liked and personally respected, they are sure to receive warm support from a number of friends, and if they are beaten, such defeat will be an honorable one.