MANGAPAI.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4487, 31 March 1876, Page 1 (Supplement)

MANGAPAI.

To the Editor of the Herald. Sir, —In your issue of February 29 is a letter signed "O while you live, tell truth and shame the devil." By his letter the writer has made out a very poor case for his motto as regards the liberality of Government money having been spent in the Mangapai district. He says that Government surveyed a township, and sold town allothigh figures ; and from the writer's letter,"*it would appear that the Government have spent iu the district from the year 1859 to 1875 the enormous amount of £ISo—£9o for a wharf, and £90 for a bridge, and formed about 20 chains of road, which the immigrants did on a road leading through the district from Wangarei to "YVaipu, and yet, with the above motto, he goes on to say that Government aid and arrangements have been well devised and most liberal, but

have been entirely marred by Maugapai men, j ie., £180 for sixteen years, or £11 os. per j annum, and now you want the Government i to put you up another wharf, so that a j steamer may come alongside, deliver her ! goods, take in what may be for her, aud get i away again with the same tide direct. Uo: ; you are getting ou too fast. I will petition ! the Government to shorten your allowance. Another thing, if you get a wharf down the river, the steatuer will not come up to our ! Maungakaramea wharf, which will incon- 1 venience us in getting our goods to and from ! there, by causing the Maungakaramea settiers either to be at the expense of buying a small boat to ply between the two wharfs, or to go five miles further overland. That is what appears to be the matter with the would-be Government Agent's most liberal financier. I think he had better try and show to the public a little more than £11 53. per annum of Government money having been spent in the Mangapai district before is likely to damage the Government credit for the future well-doing of the district. In the last paragraph of the writer's letter the scene is changed with liim. He comes to what he calls the Knaggy statements. There is no doubt Mr. Knaggs mußt either have been out of the channel, or hove the lead line well over on the shallowest side of his vessel, when he stated, at the meeting of petitioners for the pew wharf, that there were only nine mches of water between the proposed Jjjarf and the Maungakaramea wharf. There are two feet of water at lowest Jjdes, and four feet on the shallowest below toe proposed wharf. The writer states, the facts are that the Challenger, p.s., 1 *as in the habit of coming up to Maungakaramea wharf at about half tide, and, during the whole time she never sustained injury." True, she may not have sustained much injury, but the agitators for jae new wharf may say that once she might we sustained considerable injury, had the Passenger step-ladder been stronger than as it happened, the step-ladder, e a strong one, proved to be too weak LL t 8 Challenger's bows, and she made a 4v c "- right through the middle of it, and it P ass ®?B er3 from the Argyle, s.s M found rii»V Cl 7v to up over it without itafJ* J breaking B °me of their limbs. That the "*ings is not likely to last long, as aoepnf j aun gakaraniea Road Board has r a * en^er to have the steps done up th« l * am on good authority, that 1 the del?? 0 * tlie Argyle. is going to take forhiJ? if: wa t er » survey the channel fein. un S a^aramea wharf next Vraaa i jjaye no doubt but the .result of

so doing "will be, that the following trip OnptaTn' Stfiphenaoii"-will ~have the Argyle/ s.s., up alongside; of ilaungakaramea wharf, and turned " round'-with her head, ready for sea again, a sight which most of the settlers will Jiail .with pleasure, and will be ultimately, profitable to the owners. —I am, &c., — Fair Plat. Puarangi, Mangapai, March 18.