UNKNOWN

Otago Witness, Issue 2528, 27 August 1902, Page 31

UNKNOWN

August 25.— This portion of the Southland Ccunty is just at present undergoing a kind of mania, tha affecting subject being the creation cf a new county. The member for Mataura seme little time ago set the fuse nlight, and the Gore people, especially one of the Gore pppers, is chasing the project all round the ' shop. That a rew county will be found necesSgrv in the future is debatable; but just now with a very sparsely populated country, the qusetion is quite outside ths range of common 1 sense. Some of the wise men talk of "havin" ! tlie management of our affairs under our own ' control" and of "running the county on the cheap"; others are going to save the heavy expenditure of paving the travelling cO3ts incurred by the councillor. It is said that £200 ' is paid by the county to the members as travel- ' hng fees, £100 to the chairman; and one Tateps>yer said at a public meeting recently that a new county, with its headquarters at" Gore, would ba ab'.e to get nd of this heavy tax! , Just fancy creating a new county, and with the < avowed object of compelling the new ccunty members to pay their own expenses! Surely i the idea to saddle the -future members with such items is, to say the least, coating the "honour" differently than we coat the, honour of our JLH.R.'s! I am afraid that the promoters have really not seriously thought the question out. To talk of saving ona-tiiird of £'3'iO by adding extra burdens on the taxpayer equal to one-fourth of the present income of the three ridings that it is proposed to lop off the Southland County is to tax oneself with a vengeance. A much more sensible idea than separation would be to try and adjust the 1 Clutha boundary, taking in the parts that are found to overlap, and then to set up a Boundary Commission and arrange a new set of nding3, or at least so arrange the ridings as to give each a certain comnunity of interest that it must be confessed the Southland County ridings do- not possess to-day. The Clutha. County might be placated by giving certain portions of Southland lying into that county in exchange. When this was done, either a short bill could be introduced into the House giving incread^d members to certain counties, or the Local Bodies Bill of last sesion cou.'d be agitated for and the difficulty got over that ' way. Th 9 trouble seems to be in the great and ccijstantly increasing expense of keeping up the Waikaka Valley road. I am informed on Ijood authority that the yearly expense for maintaining this road run 3 away with one- ' fcurth of the income of the Mataura Riding; I in other words, the upkeep of Ihis one road. ;osts £520 a year, and the whole of the Mataura ' rates bring in about £2063. This leaves the-tu(-mber for the Mataura Riding with little more than £1500 of assured incomes for all }ther purposes. No wonder the member complains that he is always pressed for funds to ;arry on necessary work. Mr Howorth, the :ounty engineer, say 3 that to split up the ?ounty is out of the question, and that gentlenaa ought to know. The Waakaka people 1 :hink that the construction of the Gore to Kalso railway is the true and oily solution o f ;!ie trouble, as the construction of the line \culd fr^o tha rates to the extent of at least EMOO a year, which would mean a big addition 0 the revenue of the riding. Weather. — We have had a change of weather he last few days, but during the previous fortMuht it had been lovely, though some rather l.irrl frnats

JleaJth Note. — There has been a good deal of sicknesa here of one kind or another this winter. Influenza sepms to pay us a visit annually, end puta many a strong nit>n on his back.

Sheep Mortality. — I am given to understand that Mr Witkie, of the Veterinary Department, have been round thi3 part of the country looking into the death rate a-mcrag sheep. The matter is a most important one from a rheep-owner's point of view, and if a remedy can be found a great benefit will be conferred on the farmers. It is freely field by thos3 who ought to know that rotten and diseased bones 6Te the direct tivvise, and that New Zealand is being gradually saturated with all kinds of deieage, and that Iho soil is biing contaminated to en unimaginable extent. If the importation of diseases of all sorts is to go on by the introduction of manures we may as well do away with our Agi lcultural Department right off. A thorough f\iimnation of this matter is necessary to set at lest the feeling that is gaining ground as Bt:itcd above.

Tlu Electoral Boundaries. — Our district has b"en agitatad lately about the question oi L'utha v. Matauia. One party wanted Mataura and the other party gets C'lutha. The electorate is rot Wakatipu and Mataura, but Clutha and Wakatipu. On one side of the street we have rod wutpr and hlv grog, on the other we have our whisky ard respect. Dredi(irg.— The dredges are still running on, and one week is pretty much the same as the other, the returns not varying very much. S. inn are on gcod gold, and a, few are just resting. 'I here has been plenty of water all t ; .''ougli th? v/.nter and ver> few stoppages — 1.. lie, I b-'lieve, through iho frost.