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Northland Age, Volume 4, Issue 3, 3 September 1907, Page 4

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—lt is a very common expression that this is a free country, it looks as if the aliens are taking possession. Only a short time ago two flax millers applied for an extension of time to get their flax cut off the leases they bad acquired from the Government—one an Austrian, the other a Britisher. The Britisher could not get an extension. The Austrian has had two extensions and now wants to got a 21 years’ lease of the flax fields without competition, over the heads of all the flax millers in the North. The aliens start a mill, get men at all kinds of low wages, and as a working man I think it should be stopped. Where is the Factories Act? They boil it down and make laws of their own, consequently other millers have to put up with it. Mr, Editor, who is the Inspector of Factories, and why is this thing not stopped ? I hear they are felling and chopping up all the mangroves on the rivers at Awanui. They have felled acres of it and taken it away. It was the only shelter there was at the river end of Awanui, and they have exposed the paddocks to the full force of the north-east gales. When spoken to about it they simply laugh at you and say they pay 10/- per year for a license to cut firewood. Trusting this will start the officials who are supposed to look after these moil, yours etc., OBSERVER.