CORRESPONDENCE

Southland Times, Issue 20202, 13 June 1927, Page 5

CORRESPONDENCE

Letters must be written In ink and on one side of the paper. Unless a signature, not necessarily tor publication, accompanies a letter as a guarantee of good faith it will not be considered. An asterisk attached to the signature to a published letter denotes that some portion has been deleted by the Editor, a right which is exercised in questions of public policy, libel, good taste and fair Play. HORSE-OWNERS’ ASSOCIATION. To the Editor. Sir, -The above has recently been formed in Invercargill, and I intend to become a member just as soon as I can deposit the necessary “five bob” at the cab stand. To give in detail my reasons for this would occupy more space than you would spare me, but I will be as brief as I can fairly put the case of the “noblest of God’s creatures,” also of the man who is still content to prefer him as a means of locomotion to the mechanism of the Yankee. The deputation to your City Fathers judging by your report put their case very mildly about the danger of driving horses from your boundary to the hospital. I have done so once, but never again, although in my younger days I have driven in traffic, compared to which your holiday crowds are an open line, but that mile left my horse --the most perfect harness cob in N.Z. to-day—in a cold sweat, and I made the return journey by the avenue. The same night 1 drove home here under good gig lamps on a moonlight night, and several times I was blinded by the glare of motors driven by road hogs who have not the remotest conception of courtesy. In this island alone there are hundreds of thousands of pounds being spent annually on the upkeep of our roads of which how much do the owners of motor vehicles contribute? Getting down to the personal, my county rates are just on £l5O annually, and it appears to me I am not getting a fair deal in this expenditure. I can’t afford the luxury of a motor car and have consistently made a point of travelling by train when I can do so. During the summer and autumn I drove frequently into Invercargill but the whole journey is abominable to any man who loves a horse. The grader goes along and shoves the gravel to suit the motorist with the result that the poor “neddy” has to travel ankle deep in loose gravel or pull two wheels through it. My great little cob does either when I ask him, but men who know horses will understand me when I say the miles hurt me exceedingly, whereas in the old days it was a pure joy to sit and feel myself cutting them out. Now with all due respect to the trend of things modern, why should this be? On an easy average I should say that I pay more towards the upkeep of the roads in the Southland County than 90 per cent, of those who travel on them by motor car and do 90 per cent, less damage and yet my convenience or comfort is never studied or considered in any degree, hence my complaint that I am not getting a fair and square deal in the matter of the spending of county rates. Will you allow me here to remind your readers that the very first suggestion of taxing motor cars which ever appeared in any Southland paper was a letter of mine which you published. The idea at that time was put down as the dream of a crank. Some other suggestions of mine which you have been good enough to publish have been similarly named, as for instance the cutting down of railway fares in the recent excursion to Christchurch. It took place all the same, and I saved the excursionists a trifle of £250 in railway fares. Under the circumstances I am content to be looked on as a chank, so was Luther, and you have one in Invercargill with whom I am exceedingly proud to have a nodding acquaintance. Even in this hermitage of mine I hear and read much of the cost of the drink traffic in New Zealand, and I often wonder why those scribes who are so fond of maltreating statistics never think of compiling a record of how much motors, motion pictures, and football cost annually. Millions upon millions and yet we never hear a whisper of condemnation even from the churches.—l am, etc., JAMES LILICO. Northope, Winton R.D., June 10.