THE FREEHOLD.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 179, 5 August 1909, Page 5

THE FREEHOLD.

To the Editor. 1 Sir. —To the casual observer, Mr ! F. C. Stuart's contribution to the accumulating protests against that political mountebank. Mr Hogg, and his cults' subverting innovations, which I they are endeavouring their wanton best to impose upon the farmer pioneer, comes a little belated. But it does not. For until this, the land our fathers subjugated with bare hands, and a sure grip, from untouched wildernesses, is swept clean of imported special pleaders for inrequisitc humanities, and would establish manias adapted only to the blight-encrusted countries they fled from with unashamed atactity, and desire to experiment with here, an rooted out, and Jbe space they occupied well sub- j ploughed, and cleansed of their impur- ; ities with top dressings of good, whole- 1 some condemnation, and rc-plantcd ! with blight-proof New Zealand Steele, every witling helper to assist the renovation is not belated. And. what though he bring only a broken handled grubber, and begin work after others have started, and some are a J ready taking a refreshing spell-ho, every additional volunteer is welcomed with hearty acclamation.

But a 5 there seems to be some indefinite conception as to what is really objected to. and who; also, the origin of the revolt, the following may he understood to be an outline to such outside assistance as would accelerate the cleansing: Our fathers of the ancient un-foot-ball, un-sports, un-prohibition. un-twenty-acre and a-cow-mad, and unignorance corruptive breed: the breed that dared and did, and followed the footprints of the greatest humanist the world holds record of. Captain Cook, of glorious memory, and indurated with his aspirations, that, given Justice and Mercy to the Natives, here, in the Southern Seas were other worlds to subjugate and perpetuate theit genius in; and that breed, wearied of deadly leasehold drudging insecurities, degrading class subordinations, and sham patriotics, took a great heart's courage in both hands, and looking their last upon the fastly bluing coastinc of their mother, father, or Ma Patrie-land -for of eacb came honoured specimens—sailed into the setting sun forever! For to them it was forever: not one of that sacred band of he-ces and heroines -Hush! I hear their footsteps passing! - thought to return: not one of those men and women, our fathers and mothers, arising with the morrow's sun, and seeing a vast encircling ring of heaving remorseless ocean, but knew that the only exit from its immensities meant an entrance to a strange eternity

But when they arrived, and saw as face to face, that all their preconceptions were negatived by facts undreamed of: that old customs and traditions would not to fit. and must be sternly re-adjustcd: that unhewn forests mu«t befellel: that roadless mountains must be graded: that, instead of timbered houses, native raupo whares must be. and were, haggled for, as if they were Eastern palaces, lest some more fortunate plutarch snap them up: that when these were unobtainable, tentlcss mothers ripped up bed-ticking, palliasse slips. hes-dan baggage wrapping and gunny bagsaye, even surplus gowns, and stitched them into shapes of tents: that, in short, some coveted Maori stone age and axe—wrought simple appliances, as tools luxurious to the hand and wonderful efficiency: that these, and innumerable excisions of Home usages must be made, and replaced by those more suitable to new and strange conditions; and that throughout this heart-aching process of elimination, substitution, and adaption, never one instant their nerculean spirit to will, and do, quailed, or thought of turning back upon their immovable determination to lay beneath the Southern Cross the foundations of a FREEHOLD empire for their children's children to all Eternity! Who then arc these crass-inflated pigmies.who entering by needy stealth, when the giants are at rest, would with their weather perished antiquated picks and gads, wreck a structure, so laboriously founded. Their mouldy brains cannot even appraise the stupendous grandeur of! They are unworthy, yet let us consider them awhile: From a critical r.ur, and obview, they seem frogs who would be oxen, but whose outer pellicle will bear no more distension lest there ensne pathetical disruptions. Scions of a petty breed into whose rearing and traditions, petty thoughts, and petty aspirations, are finely ground into atomic divisions, by a landlordry privileged to squeeze, and rack, and stultify, until their very souls are soddened with the certitude, that landlordry, and leasehold, and home-spun, and small ideals and grovelling hymns of: "Britons never shall be slaves" gTovellingly song and twenty acre husbandry are the comerstones on which mighty Empires arc uoraised! And would translate the pitiable sordid indigence of standard here; and by Nature's law of atavism, perpetuate the petty breed, and degrade that which our grand old fathers, by lives of toil and thought, and abnegation, dreamed to resurrect into the legendary Islands of the Blest; but these petty, selfstyled, humanising innovators, would cut up into a grand parquetry of twenty-acre onion beds and herbage for a cow! Imagine the mana. the magnificence, the lordship among the peoples of the earth, of a nation of earthy grubbing kitchen gardeners! Pretty panorama, eh?: As far as eye can see, twenty-acre leasehold rectangles, punctuated in the centre with a cow! Very enobling this! A glorious incentive to defend an fight for when Banzai! is yelling up the lane!

But perhaps we wrong them, and the rumour is incorrect that-they arc to clothe their nakedness, by exchanging carrots and broccoli with each oth<r. May be tbey have discovered unknown continents to ship lettuce and ra-!i?h to: And new systems of refrigeration, lest this tender vegetation wilt, a: : become offensive to the sight! Or. may be, they are jovially anticipant of transit by Jacob's Ladder, or aeroplane, or something, to convey their stuff to Mars, whose creatures arc hungering for leasehold cabbages! Who

knows? Who can plumb the depth of the New Wisdom? anything is possible to fad-mad humanists! But this is on inviolable certitude: we, the New Zelaand born children of . the pilgrim fathers, absolutely refuse to be - ominated by imported fanatical enthusiasts.- I am, etc,. W.B. Te Kuiti To the Editor. Sir.—That spacious and imposing edifice in Te Kuiti—the Town Hall—which is admittedly, as regards accommodation, "quite adequate for all requirements" (to use a Government j stock phrase), is very much lacking • in that one and great essential—light- j ing. Both artistes and audienc- are j seriously inconvenienced by the lack j of good stage lighting, especially footlights which arc usually found in j | even the smallest country halls, i ' Trusting some effort will be made by I j the authorities to remedy this 1 i defect.—l am, etc., ! PLAYGOER. j „ -- - . To the Editor. i Sir,—l soe by Mr Arthur SaviU's ■ letter regarding Piopio School that he 1 opens out to pull my letter to pieces, j but at the finish he practically sub- \ stantiatrs my statement except that, I > place this junction and he the thirteen , mile peg, as the centre of the Piopio j district. As for quolirg Scriptural ; Texts: that would b* better omitted j as this is not a Sunday School debate; ( also shmild Mr Riddle have anything to j say, he is quite abl • to say tt himself, I instead of trusting to a man whose j centre is the Thirteen mile peg. Re- j garding the rrst of this district Mr | Savill evidently knows very little j about it, for while perusing his district map he should have noticed a school reserve on the Pu!«earuhe road, where Mr Riddle's assistance will be required to get a school granted. I know from personal conversation with parents that there are children coming to Piopio »chool, a distance of over six miles, and this is the nearest school by public road they are ever likely to ect. Besides there are girls amongst the family who cannot attend until there is a suitable building erected. Ido not think the crows fly about here; in any case my children are not crows, so they cannot fly to school. :Of course there may b? a licensed hotel at the junction in the future to | suit A.S., but as 1 do not indulge I iam not interested in that subject. Should it suit him better, and he starts in soon enough, he may get the hotel at the thirteen mile peg. The latest conundrum is: "If a man got three letters from the Education Board in eighteen months, how long will it take him to get a school at the thirteen mile peg?"—l am, cite., H. G. ANDREWS.