CAMP RESERVE SALE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 660, 5 July 1871, Page 3

CAMP RESERVE SALE.

TO TBI XSITOB OF LAKE WAX A TIP MAIL. Sib, —Although not a Government official living in a town, enjoying all the benefit conferred by a Municipality nor paying a Id to its cost, I share in none of that enormous expenditure of £120,000 per annum which it costs to govern us. I am, further, not one of those against whom Mr Macandrew flung taunts that the civil servants moved heaven and earth to prevent retrenchment. I am, however, a taxpayer to the Provincial and General Governments, of Bay about £2O per annum. I have a small family to support; rent to pay ; municipal taxes to meet; an 1 chapels and charities to support and aid. Why should the civil servant be placed in abetter position than myself? Why should the State favor them at my expense ? I will not grudge them their shorter hours of labor; their comfortable offices; their many spells from work; their enjoyment of their croquet lawns; sporting holidays; and a lot of other good things. What I do ask is that the busy bees who gather the honey should not be placed at so great a disadvantage. Here is our Gold Receiver going to get a piece of the Camp Reserve for nothing. Not only does he want the piece of ground his own house stands upon, but also, I hear, his pigeon house block, his garden (No. 2), a slice of the Police Camp Eeserve, all covered, under a valuation of £3O. Some mo iths ago an acquaintance of mine applied for valuation for premises, and was refused; but here is a most valuable block of land situated in the most commanding position; the premises built by the Government; the right of occupation given by the Government free; freedom from municipal taxes escaped in the past — about to be sacrificed, iou perhaps,. Sir, little know the heart-burning this is creating. The people are being robbed to favor a pampered class. Why will not the Government give us similar advantages? They might lighten our taxes if they would even give these reserves as an endowment to the Corporation. Mr Beetham got his bui ding that cost me and the public nearly £IOOO, for less than £100; and now we are expected to look on tamely and see a second job perpetrated by the Government, or somebody else, in the very centre of the Camp Eeserve. I, for one, protest, and .will do all I can to burke transactions that reflect no credit upon any Government, and only teach the people how corrupt is the system we live under. lam sorry I cannot handle the subject better. —Tours &c„ A Deluded Taxpayer Queenstown, Ist July, 1871.