PUBLIC MEETING AT PATEA.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume II, Issue 132, 20 July 1881, Page 2

PUBLIC MEETING AT PATE A.

An important public meeting was held at Patea on Saturday last. Apart from the subjects mentioned by the conveners of the meeting, having relation to the opening up of land for settlement, and the proposed route of the railway line, other questions of general interest to the whole of the county were brought up and discussed, although ratepayers and residents at this end of the county were not informed of the meeting, or afforded any opportunity of ventilating their views on the subject. The Patea Mail reports that a motion adverse to county separation was carried with only one dissentient, although it is known that a petition in favor of the formation of a new county is now before the House of Representatives, and although the ratepayers affected by this resolution had no knowledge that this subject was at all likely to be brought before the public. Public meetings to have any weight must be fairly representative. In respect to the points to winch we have alluded, there is a good deal to be said on the other side. Thy petition which was circulated through the district in favor of a separate county was signed by almost every ratepayer to whom it was presented. If, therefore, at a public meeting held at Patea a resolution was passed almost unanimously that no alteration be made, it is evident that a very large section of the ratepayers was entirely unrepresented. It is always a questionable policy to convene a public meeting at short notice for one purpose, and afterwards to introduce another. It may no doubt be contended that county representation and county sub-division are too closely connected to be debated separately. If that be so then it would have been only fair and reasonable to give full publicity to the meetiug, and at least a week's *Ss£bSStnM%mMtis&fcSy wTsFeiir