PAHIATUA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 8039, 22 March 1887, Page 3

PAHIATUA.

(PROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT). March 18

After the long spell of dry weather, about a fortnight ago a little rain brought out the familiar emerald of bush lands. Now it is like early spring at Home—sharp nights and warm days. Gardeners say “the heat is in the ground,” and vegetation all is going ahead. Surely this is not what happens in England in September?

The railway agitation slumbers ; everyone is on the alert to observe the great ceremony at the neighboring township, Woodville. On the 22ud our fair elder sister attains her majority, not as being 21 years of age, but as “ coming out,” which means that the railway will be open to Napier. This upsets all our ideas. We have suddenly realised that all our “ heavy stuff,” such as iron, wire, flour, must absolutely come from Napier. You see the cartage from Woodville can be done on a large scale for 10s a ton, while from Mangamahoe, the terminus of the Maaterton line, it is 30s. Beside this, there is no township and no telegraph at Mangamahoe ; so consignments may wait there days without being fetched. The effect on Napier will be anything but pleasant, but X will not dilate on matters uninteresting to the general reader. The Mauawatu Gorge is the scene of an experiment that makes one wish our noisy democracy, with their notions of municipal or local bodies, was all replaced by some calm autocrat. Everyone knows that there is a toll-gate at each end of the Gorge. The tolls are calculated in a queer way. Xam informed a team oi ten bullocks would pay 12s at each gate. Now, what do you think they have done? Put another gate in the middle ! Solemn fact ! Coat you 3Qs to take a load of timber through. If in Central Africa you had to pay three tolls in four miles, amounting to nearly the value of the goods carried (seoond-olasa timber is 3s per hundred here), you would call the local kings “robber chiefs.” What, then, are we to call the people who put up these toll-gates ? It is ruinous to the district, because it turns trade into artificial channels, I want, say, six or seven lons of potatoes, and the same of oats and chaff. Palmerston is far and-away the cheapest market; but as the carrier has to face three tolls iu the Gorge and another between Woodville and Pahiatua, ha simply won’t quote a price. X can hire him by the day, and pay charges ; but commerce requires regular established lines; we don’t want to organise a ser. vice for every separate transaction. The end of it will be a raid on these gates. We have had our town valued by the Town Clark, and now are paying rates. We are all valued at about four times our real value. I will give an instance. Mr Blank is valued at L 63 a year. He writes to the Star, and says his property is worth L 350, and consequently the annual value is set as nearly 2Q per cent, on the capital value. Everyone knows the real annual value of houses, land, &o, is nearer 5, par cant. Annual value is not letting value ; that depends on covenants in lease, &e. We cannot object at the Assessment Court, because the Town Hoard have either not compiled their roll iq time for objections to be sent in or played some other fantastic trick. However, what’s the odds 1 What are two votes (more or loss) spread over, a whole year 1 Better to be iu Pahiatua with heavy rates and a full belly than in London with no rates at all, and a gnawin" in the pit of your stomach. Wo all have got pleuty to eat, and as the poorest and neediest have beer nncj tobacco, I suppose the better off haye their luxuries too. Will an end of it eyor come? Not in my time, I hope. . Everyone is going to shoot pigeons very shortly, and great yarns are being spun about the number procurable. There is possibly something in it, as we have very long lengths of road running through virgin hush, where no man goes save perhaps gunning. In a year or two ajl this virgin bush will he felled and burnt, and tffen I suppose Mr Bigeon will hetako himseif to remoter solitudes. The Jcaka is also shut; he is a sort o»£ parrot, a wise bird, and his brains aye said to be a delicacy. Jf he could road this ! How should you, Sir, lilfe it, jf yau aod I were reserved for the piece de resistance at a feast of South Sea Islanders, on similar grounds 1