FENCING OFF THE PUBLIC.

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Volume 3, Issue 153, 6 November 1895, Page 2

FENCING OFF THE PUBLIC.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib, —At t,l»o last meeting of tho llotorua Town Board, as reported in your columns, the residents wore again treated with that supercilious neglect of their best interests which has long characterise:! tho proceedings of that strangely constituted local body. In this instance we find that an application from a small private club of footballers to fence out at considerable cost the public from the best part of the people's domain is actually entertained by the local authority, while the humble prayer of arepresontative meeting of the unfortunate residents of this arbitrarily governed township to swoop

away an intolerable and unspeakable nuisance; fostered, if not caused, by an unsightly boarded fence around part of tho same domain is treated with contenmt and relegated to the dim vistas of some distant future—when the Board may have funds to spare on such a trivial object as the inhabitants' health and well-being. It is high time indeed that such glaring abuse of power on the one hand and such stolid indifference to the crying wants of the place by .an irresponsible body of nominees such as we are now groaning under be put an end to and a committee or council' of earnest business men elected by the people themselves entrusted to curry out the important work of assisting the government of the country in making tho town of Rotorua in all respects a fit and attractive abode and worthy of its evident destiny, namely, the chief city of the Won lerland of Now Zealand.

When such a true local authority is established then but not until then can we hope to see true and intelligent progress in the direction indicated. Iu the meantime, for some time longer it is, presumable the long suffering people will have to continue suffering from the gross insanitary conditions hourly increasing in intensity all over the new and old townships, with their miserable roads and unkempt and unsightly approaches from the ssirrounding districts, their treeless (excepting in the official quarters) and lightless streets, and the general results of the neglect and incapacity of the past and present regime. Tjie.v, we will find no more senseless freaks of officialism as reported at tho latest meeting of tho nominated authority who have so freely given the public away in the matter of the football club application, and as freely mil gratuitously ignored the prayer of the residents to remove a present and palpable nuisance existing in the very midst of the most populous portion of tho Township of Rotorua.—l am, &c, Annus. [We wish it to be distinctly understood that the columns of this journal are open to all for the free expression of opinion on any matter affecting the welfare of till! township. Anyone suffering from a grievance is most welcome to give utterance to his complaint in the columns of the so long as he steers clear of tho law of libel, and concerning that we constitute ourselves tho judge. ° Disquisitions on general politics or polemical controversies on theological subjects we should prefer to see in the more elastic columns of our metropolitan contemporaries, but correspondence on local mattors from all points of view we heartily invite. We are led to make theso remarks owing tO the fact that our correspondent " Argus," expresses the opinion in a postscript that his remarks, lx;cause they reflected on a recent action of the Town Board, would not have insertion. All public bodies, however constituted, aiv open to criticism, and it is not to be supposed for a moment that the Town Board desires to prevent tho free expression of opinionregardingitsactions.-El). H.L.C.]