ACCOMMODATION HOUSE AT OTARAIA STREAM.

Otago Witness, Volume 25, Issue 1004, 25 February 1871, Page 8

ACCOMMODATION HOUSE AT OTARAIA STREAM.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir— l observe in your paper an advertisement calling for tenders for the leasing of fifty acres of ground or the building of an accommodation house at Otaraia Stream ; for particulars apply to Mr Driver. I consider it is right that the following facts in connection with the matter should be made known. About two years ago I made application to the Waste Land Board for permission to ereot an accommodation house at that place. The necessity for suoh a house there, was well known to and folly admitted by the Board, and my fitness for conducting it was attested by a number of respeotable ronholdere in the district. The Board decided that a house should be erected at once, but as Mr Driver was interested in the run upon which a portion of the reserve applied for by me was situated, it was considered he should be consulted. Consideration of my application was adjourned for a fortnight, when Mr Driver appeared, opposed my application, and made one himself, which was granted upon condition that the house be erected within six months. That period expired, and many months more, and 1 heard no more of tne matter till His Honour the Superintendent called upon me upon his way from Inveroargill, some six months ago. He then brought up the subject of my application, expressed his own knowledge of the great want of an accommodation house at the phwe referred to, and requested me to renew my appliofction, t&i fa would «a-

deavoar to see it put all right for me. I did so, and wm again opposed by Mr Driver. The Board gave him till Ist January to have the house erected, failing which his application would be refused and another accepted. The Ist of January \ passed, and still no house erected. Now, it appears the time has again been extended to Ist March, and apparently Mr Driver now wishes to let the ground for some tenant to erect a house upon. That is, the Government have given Km the ground upon such terms as he believes he can make a nice little sum as a middle party between them and the tenant, and the latter will be obliged to screw every penny he can out of passing travellers, in order to pay his rent and Mr Driver's profit. I make bo comment. I leave the public to judge as to whether I have been honestly treated by the Board, and as to whether the whole transaction does not indicate partiality, and that Mr Driver possesses some mysterious influence over the Waste Land Board or the Government which he ought net to have. The affair has certainly cost me not a little of both time and money, and the wants of the travelling public have for two years been ignored, and all apparently to suit Mr Driver's private ends. The wants of the public have in no way been consulted in the matter : it has simply been a question of time and Mr Driver's interest ; the house will only be erected when he can find a tenant foolish enough to take the ground at a rate which will afford Mr Driver the amount of profit he has deteftnined to make out of the transaction. Such I look upon as another instance of the " corruption which seethes and festers afonnd us." — I am, &o M Thomas Quill. Tokomalriro, 16th February.