HAWERA AND THE TARANAKI HARBOR.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 24, 3 July 1880, Page 4

HAWERA AND THE TARANAKI HARBOR.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR.

Sir, — I see by the late issue of the Taranaki News that the late meeting in Hawera has stirred the bile of that journal, the editor of which is reputed to be the late acting chairman of the New Plymouth Harbor Board.

The News sets us straight in our errors ; does not imagine for one moment that our " puny efforts" will avail to work them any harm ; and thinks it would be a base piece of "political immorality" to try and upset the arrangement of the 25 per cent, of the land revenue being spent at New Plymouth. Of course, there is the usual amount of talk about this district being most largely benefitted — an argument the settlers in the Patea district fail to see. The coolness of the Taranaki News is refreshing (in warm weather.) It lets the poor settlers here down very quietly. "My dear sirs, you are quite an ignorant lot ; your ideas are erroneous ; you are working against your own good ; we are doing our best to make your district flourish ; and — everything is settled — it is no use trying to upset it." We are perfectly aware that the .£200,000 voted is for a small portion of the work, estimated to cost, when finished, over a million of money. We are perfectly aware that the New Plymouth people insanely nurse the absurd idea that the " great harbor" is a " national work," and ' "when they have spent the .£200,000 voted,* expect the Government and both Houses to say, "We will finish this great undertaking, now that .£200,000 has been speDt." We are quite aware that it is not a necessity that the work must proceed until the ,£200,000 is spent, and that

they can stop the works at any time, and" this is one reason why the Patea settlers are trying to stop the works, until there is some alteration in the incidence of taxation.

It is a well-known fact here that the New Plymouth people have such infatuated ideas of the harbor works that they blind themselves into the belief that they are benefitting the whoie coionj m buiMiixiga "harbor 0$ refuge," and. this district in particular, by giving us poor, short-sighted, ignorant, frontier settlers, a fine opening for exporting our produce, for which they only ask 25 per cent, of our land revenue to help to pay the cost of construction. We think we can inform the News that we are not such big fools as we look. We know that it is the opinion of every marine engineer consulted that it is impossible to construct a harbor of refuge at New Plymouth. We know that when the News says that they have reason to believe the portion of the work estimated by Sir J. Coode to cost .£280,000 "will really cost nothing like that sum, they are putting the estimates of their own engineer against Sir J. Coode's ; but we are perfectly sure the Government will take no more notice of the harbor engineer's estimate than they would of any other layman. It was Sir J. Coode's plans and estimates they accepted and sanctioned before, and it is Sir J. Coode's amended plans and estimates that will require to be accepted and sanctioned again, before a single penny of money can be legally expended. These are nuts for the New Plymouth people to crack, and they will have to crack them if their antediluvian jaws are strong enough — as long as the Patea district has a single hand to furnish the nuts.

The " News " does not imagine our " puny efforts " will avail for a moment, and yet, in the same breath, tells us it would be a base piece of " political immorality to try and upset existing an'angements. As to the first, I beg to remind the News of the fable relative to the " Mouse and the captured Lion." It took small means to liberate the monarch of the forest, and the Patea mouse is determined to gnaw away at the meshes that entangle the lion's share of its land revenue, that it may escape the fatality of being cast into the sea at New Plymouth. It is satisfactory to know that the settlers are, so to speak, one mouse — a united rnouse — head, and tail, legs and wings — all united in the gnawing work; but there are many holes in the Taranaki net — their is no unity at their end of the district. "We shall, no doubt, receive hearty assistance from the Inglewood and Waitara " fools," who do not see their way to the reckless waste of their money. To the " political immorality " point of the News' effusion, the settlers here rather fancy that the "political immorality " started in the Taranaki Provincial Council, when they not only wished to deprive the whole of the Taranaki provincial district of 25 per cent, of their land revenue, but to levy a tax of 2d. in the .£ — since increased to a shilling in the £ — over the whole of the provincial district also. It is to Messrs. Peacock and McGuire, the representatives of this district in the Provincial Council, that the thanks of the settlers are due that the grasping, immoral politicians of New Plymouth were restrained from coming farther south with their land tax than the Waingongoro river.

Of course, it was not " political immorality" when the Taranaki members sold themselves from one Government to another, and vice versa, so that they were known as representing a pocket borough, and all their votes hinged on their Harbor Bill being passed and made law, notwithstanding the protest of the comparatively few settlers who were then in this district. The three Taranaki members, having their whole interests at or near New Plymouth, has been a serious loss to this district, and many of the settlers hope that the time is not far distant when this district, from Opunake to Wairoa, will be represented by a person who has some interest here, and who will not consider it " political immorality " to do his utmost to overthrow the New Plymouth harbor works taxation. — I am, &c,

Patea.