THE KING NATIVES AND TELEGRAPHIC EXTENSION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9020, 5 April 1888, Page 5

THE KING NATIVES AND TELEGRAPHIC EXTENSION.

One of the matters the natives intend to bring before the Native Minister, we hear, when he visits them at Otorohanga on Friday next, is the necessity for a telephone wire to that place and Te Kuiiti. They argue that large interests will be decided at the Native Land Courts held there during the next few years, and that they are laced at a great disadvantage in not aving the means at once of telegraphic communication when occasion requires it With people who are concerned, but who toay be at a distance when the case in which they have an interest may be brought on. At present all have to hang about the Court, it may be for weeks or months, before their case comes on, fearing that, if they return to their homes, it may be brought on before they hear of it, owing to the present defective communication. The natives have erected a large and suitable- Court-house, and also a iir3t-class eix roomed house for the accommodation of the Court officials, and they think that the Government should do its share towards facilitating the important business that will be transacted there, by giving direct telegraphic communication with the rest of the colony, a« well for the convenience of itn own officials as for the public generally. It is rumoured that, owing to the intended migration of the Waikatos to the lower portion of the district, Mr. G. T. Wilkinson, the Government Native Agent, will in future be stationed at Otorohanga, and his having been appointed interpreter to the Court there seems to confirm this report. If so, it will be all the more necessary for political reasons that this telephone line should be erected. That the department is alive to this want is shown by its having lately caused to be made an examination of the route, and as it runs alongside the railway line, it would be an easily and cheaply-erected line. It is said on good authority that the report was a favourable one, and that if it is authorised the line will be put up in a most permanent manner, as the department recognises that it will ultimately form a portion of the main telegraph linS through the bland. The business people at Otorohanga and Te Kuiti offered to enter into a bond to protect the department against; any loss, but were informed that guarantees had not been found to woik well, and consequently their offer was declined. There is no doubt, and it is an important consideration at the present time, that the line would be at once a source of revenue, and not, as many new lines are, a direct loss to the department. Major Jackson has strongly brought this matter to the notice of the Government, but so , far has had to be content with promises of its receiving "serious consideration." There are, however, so many interests concerned in the erection of this line, and so many good reasons for it, that both European and Maori residents in the King country feel confident that when the matter is duly laid before Mr. - Mitcheleon it will at least secure his cordial support .in oabinet.