The Marlborugh Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 1895. KALKOURA LAND.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXI, Issue 162, 3 July 1895, Page 2

The Marlborugh Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 1895. KALKOURA LAND.

♦ Every community has its own particular local patriot — the worker, the agitator — who is impressed more than anybody else with the resources and possibilities of the district, and is ever on the alert to forward its interests. And most useful men some of them are, m whose absence many a golden opportunity would be overlooked and lost for ever. Such a man is Mr J. A. Parsons, of Kaikoura, the member of the Land Board who, it will be remembered, was chiefly responsible for the agitation m connection with the endeavor some tim© ago to obtain a tri-weekly service between Blenheim and Christchurch ; and who convened a meeting which was held at Kaikoura last week, to urge upon the Government the roading of the Crown Lands of that place which are fit for settlement. Notwithstanding the exceedingly stormy weather, there was an attendance on that occasion of some fifty settlers;- and the proceedings throughout were enthusiastic. " Agitation is my watchword," said Mr Parsons ; and he went on to expatiate on the value of the Crown lands of the Kaikoura district, and the desirableness and advisableness of their roading and settlement. Resolutions were carried urging the member for Ashley to use his most strenuous efforts to induce the Government to put m hand at the earliest possible moment the roading of all the Crown lands, fit for settlement, between the Clarenoe and Conway rivers, and the speedy formation of the road between Kaikoura and Cheviot ; and that the same gentleman and the Land Board be communicated with as to the obtaining of the reservation of suitable blocks of Crown land as endowments for a local hospital, secondary education, and river conservation purposes. The formation of a road between Kaikoura and Cheviot, and the construction of a bridge across the Waiau at the Parnassus crossing would, Mr Parsons pointed out, open up 70,000 acres of good land. Another resolution was carried regretting the illness of the Hon J. McKenzie, " as he is the only Minister that has heretofore taken any practical interest m this isolated district." Mr McKenzie will be flattered that he is singled out m this manner for special ! eulogy, but other Ministers will no doubt feel proportionately " satupon," and we are not quite sure whether this was a very politio move on the part of the Kaikouraites. One very prominent feature of the gathering was the reference to the endeavours of the Blenheim Borough Council to obtain the valuable Kahautara block of Crown Land as an endowment. Mr Parsons was applauded for his fervept remark that I' if by sitting up all night and working equal to niue days m a week he could defeat the project he would do so." It was right he admitted #Wt BJenbeim should have a good j

endowment, but it should be of land near that place, so that if not administered wisely the people could "kick up a row" and have things altered. The ratepayers of Blenheim would not know and might become indifferent as to how things were going on 100 miles away, and then there was the old stock argument about the injustice to Kaikoura. The arguments are weak. The first one is manifestly so; and as for the second one we fail to see its force. Anyone would think that the Blenheim Council were trying to remove the land, part and parcel, from the Kaikoura district to the Wairau Valley, and that the Kaikouraites are daily expecting to see the block rise majestically into the air, and disappear over the hills to the North. The Council would benefit from the possession of the reserve to the extent of about £200 a year; that money would go out of Kaikoura even if the Council- did not get the block, for it is not at all likely m view of the faot that she already possesses reserves, that Kaikoura will obtain such a valuable piece of land for herself. From the Star's report of the meeting to which we have alluded, it appears that the manner m which the Express dealt with the question was not approved. The Kaikoura Star has suddenly awaked to an illusion of its own creation.