Oreti Plains

Southland Times, Issue 13503, 21 July 1896, Page 3

Oreti Plains

(from our own correspondent.) Excepting ab Winton and immediate neighbourhood the floods have nob been so serious as on some previous occasions. The ground was very dry and did not readily absorb the downpour, consequently its rapid flow over the surface soon flooded all the ditches and creeks. We cannot say we have had any winter weather hitherto, but it is overtaking us now. The numbers of sea birds far inland is a sure indication of rough weather on the coast. All classes of stock are in good condition. It was at one time feared that owing to the turnips being a light crop there would be a shortage of feed ; but the fine winter weather we have enjoyed up till now has, so far, dispelled that fear, and the turnips have kept growing this year longer than they generally do. The roads have also got the benefit of the weather and have never got broken up as they did last season. Some of the roads about Drummond that have been very much neglected have, [in view of the near approach of the county elections, been done up a little to put us, so to speak, over that crucial period. The political atmosphere is nob yet in a disturbed condition. I do nob think the present Government is Eo popular even with the unthinking part of the oommnnity as it was before the J. G. W. outburst. The feeling is. certainly different from what it was at the time “the heaven-born financier” returned to Wellington in triumph, and the intelligence and moral worth here is not in sympathy with the expressions of the Invercargill or Dunedin crowds. They claim rather to be in accord with the 90 per cent of the press the honourable gentleman declaimed against at Winton, which he had better have said nothing about as it was so little to his credit to have so much of the press against him and the Government. It is held by a large number about hero to be more particularly damaging to him, when they take into account the character of thia large section of the press, which could nob have been better illustrated than by the comparison between the 90 per cent, of fair, reasonable criticism, and the 10 per cent, of washy, flaccid effusions by [way of apology for the late exposures. 15th July.