CORRESPONDENCE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 3155, 23 June 1892, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

MR. GRATTON IN REPLY.

To the Editor of the Star.

Sm, — I have seen an article appearing in your issue of June 4th animadverting strongly on the fact that I have obtained the gazetting of 65,000 acres of land in the Taranaki district for speoial settlement, and the whole tone of the article is deprecatory of my efforts to settle the unoccupied lands of the district. Believing as I do that population (of the right sort) is wealth, I had thought that I was doing the district some service in introducing what I consider to be a desirable olass of settlers. You " express your wonder as to what Taranaki people with families growing up think of my efforts " to settle the lands of the district. I say that if Taranaki is not settled except by its own residents, it is likely to remain for all time no more progressive than it has been up to the present, and that it is only by the Taranakians seeing their lands through other people's spectacles that they are beginning to awake to the true value of them. Perhaps you are of the same opinion as Mr. G. W. Calvert, who stated at Mr. Hutchison's meeting at Eltham that the reason he asked a question relating to General Booth's coming to Taranaki was that •• they would have youngsters enough of their own to ocoupy all the land in Taranaki;" Seeing that the total increase of scholars for the whole of the district in 1891 was but 181, I think you will be a long time in settling Taranaki if you depend entirely on yourselves. I should have thought you would have been only too glad to have seen a large population (which it must necessarily be to have taken up the quantity of land stated) coming amongst you, and you Beem to me to be actuated by very much the same disposition as the dog-in-the-manger when yon ask, "Why should Wellington 'provincial district not settle Wellington provincial district lands ?" if you would debar qs from using that that you cannot settle yourselves. I, however, from my knowledge of the Taranakians, and remembering the kind treatment I received from everyone with whom I came in contact on my visits to your diitrici, decline to believe that the people of the district view my efforts to settle amongst them in anything but a favorable light, andl soarcely see why you object to our availing ourselves of the advantages Taranaki possesßei in a delightful climate and as being one of the richest districts in the quality of the soil, and also one of the best watered districts in "New Zealand. With regard to my having a large block of privately-owned land to dispose of, you justly say that •' it is not your duty to offer any comment on my business in connection with it," but I do not see that, as I have that bußinest,>it follows as a j natural sequence (as you'imply it does) that,lAm apt "one of ( a hards -band of pioneerrprepared to face ths heroic work of settlement." You say that idea is dispelled, bat t I scarcely,. ; 6«e on what grounds you arrive at what is most certainjly,a most erroneous .coac}oßion. : , .You say,* also, that theje.is.no neoessity to held me up as a self-sacrificing patriot at work in the public interest. I was '^JfctTaware that I. was so held, up or have posed as one,' bat I certainly think that no one will denyj that the work I bays done, bta bee^itpr the interest of those of: the. public with whom I :am connected. Having nothing, but what I work fqn I> cannot afford "to take up the " self-sacrificing patriot " role,' for I don't think tbat,would buy tfreaa arid butter", and I 'consider that I have a,s much right to be paid for my turife/'braina, and energy aB any. other man.,. 'l cannot help .but think that you are very for Immediately preceding the article in which you object to the Wellington people coming to^Tara- i naki you have an artiote in which you say i that " the Auckland people who We" promoting settlement on the Ohura block on the Tatanaki railway route are on tn ; e ! right tiaok in more senses than one." Is! it because the Ohura block ii practically ! inaccessible to the people of your district i that you applaud the action of the Auck- ! land people, and blame the Wellington \ people simply because they hay* taken up that land that is nearest to settlement ?— - I am, &c, Ohaelbs S. Gaxton. Palmerston North, June 2Qfch.