NGAIRE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume III, Issue 235, 14 April 1882, Page 2

NGAIRE.

(PHOM OTJB OWN CORRESPONDENT.).

A special meeting of the Bead Board was held here yesterday, as there was noquorum present on the usual day. I was unable to get down owing to a flooded creek which my horse could not cross, but the business was not of an important nature. Messrs. Godkin (chairman), Cowen, Harm, Ealfe, and Taylor were present. Advice was. received from the Treasury to the effect that £240 had been forwarded to the Board's bankers. Accounts to the amount of .£230 were presented and paid. The matter of Meyenberg*s bridge came up again and caused a very long discussion, Mr. Taylor strongly opposing permission being given to commence the work. He said that once that was done several other applications of a similar nature would be made, and if they were granted — and they would probably have as strong a claim — the next board would find their money spent for them. Mr. Cowen took the same view. Mr. Ealfe argued strongly in favor of letting the , work proceed, as the board had on two previous occasions resolved to assist in the matter, if possible, and they now had the opportunity; besides which, the applicant wished to take hiß wife and family on to his land next week. It was finally reserved to let the work go on. Complaint was" made of trees, ten in number, blocking tbe Bird Eoad. The clerk was instructed to write to the occupier of the land from which they came, and request him to at once clear the track. The foreman was instructed to see that a similar obstacle was removed from Anderson Eoad. The hour of next meeting was fixed for 10 o'clock. . A registrar of births is much wanted in this district, as you would have thought if you had been at the school treat the other evening— babies by the dozen. Without joking, though, it is very awkward here, on the border-line. The nearest office is at Inglewood, but they will not register children from the Hawera side of the Patea river; that must be done at Hawera; but it is an unreasonable distance, and I hear that representation is being made to headquarters on the matter. Another subject that badly wants ventilation ia the unsatisfactory state of things with regard to education reserves. Ihe whole of this district is thickly studded with these sections, and the Taranaki commissioners decline to have anything to do with <livir»in? fences— say they are not liable. Trtws blow down, from their lands and blocl: rjads : v.all, some one else may shift them, r.n.l tlie attempt to get any rates out of them vonld be a decided failure. They are. autir? according to thaii lights.

too douht, and consider that they are but doing their duty aud making the most oftheir trust when they keep thousands of acres locked up, waiting for rents that people will not give, but which they hope to receive when we pioneers have improved the district sufficiently. I think, however, that it would not be a difficult matter to show that they would be juat aa well off if they were at once to lease them for a small rental, and get the improvements made to which they bind their tenants, as if they kept them unproductive for years and then got more income. The gain to the district by fcno former course would be very great.