PATEA MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1880. NEW PLYMOUTH LAMENTING.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 521, 18 May 1880, Page 2

PATEA MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1880. NEW PLYMOUTH LAMENTING.

Things are going wrong in Taranaki. New Plymouth complains that the sick, lame, and blind arc foisted upon it—‘‘besides the drunkards.” Persons outside of New Plymouth will receive this information with surprise Home exTaranaki residents tell ns that New Plymouth is the leading city of the colony ; that its chief men, of whom there are many, are heaven-born politicians ; that its people are affectionately united to a degree of consanguinity unknown elsewhere; that its climate is perfection, its mountain is a stupendous work of local manufacture, and its harbour is to be the greatest engineering triumph in the world. All those things have been said so often down Pa teaway, that we have accepted them as facts beyond the stage of argument. Fixed ideas are like fixed stars—tilings not to bo questioned in a profane spirit. Nobody questions that New Plymouth is Taranaki, and nobody denies that Taranaki is the Garden of New Zealand. The voice of Taranaki in Parliament is always potent, persuasive, and peculiar. Taranaki asks for much, and gets much, because Taranaki is great and good. To them that have, much shall ho given ; and that “ much goes to New Plymouth as naturally as the needle inclines to the pole. No portion of the “ much ” is ever frittered away outside New Plymouth. The “brethren” of that celestial city have yet to learn that there is or can be any Taranaki other than their own. Paten is only Patca, and has nothing to do with Taranaki. We help to send an Fgmont member to Parliament, but Egmont is Taranaki, and the member wc send is also Taranaki. Ho votes in the name of Egmont, and the price of his vote goes to Taranaki. The member for Egmont never visits the Patca district, and Patca knows him not, except when an election is duo. All this is very Taranaki. But wo :.t the Patca end don’t like it. Wc at the Patca end won’t stand it. The “ sick, lame, and blind,” besides the “ drunkards,” who arc crying out for more sugar-loaves for Taranaki, may go on crying. They have had their sugarstick and eaten it. Our turn should come soon ; and when it does come, wo hope to show the “sick, lame, and blind,” besides the “ drunkards,” how to bcnclit ourselves without robbing our neighbours. ♦