MR W. E. TAYLOR’S SPEECH.

Southland Times, Issue 20618, 17 October 1928, Page 3

MR W. E. TAYLOR’S SPEECH.

To the Editor. Sir, —With regard to your leader in Monday’s paper I note you make some very bold and, I might also say, personal remarks* regarding Mr Taylor’s address. First liquor: You state Mr Taylor’s suggestion is not practicable, and the reason given is the Prohibition party. In the first case which are in the majority? Second, what has the question to do with Prohibition and even if it had he doesn’t intend to lay it on like water to the houses. All he means is that if we are to consume, why not derive revenue from it.

As regards land policy you have got rather mixed up with personal remarks and island feeling etc. and consequently contradict yourself in places. But from what I can glean from it you evidently haven’t heard Mr Taylor speak and are writing from hearsay which can be proved by referring to Mr Taylor’s notes and you will see they alter the meaning of the reading to: “If suitable land can be found.” With regard to the rest of your statement regarding old workings etc, it proves that you have never seen the'country for the ground that he refers to is nearly all native bush with the exception of the high country which extends from the Waiau river to Westland down by Queenstown to Waiau, an area about the size of Southland on which with the exception of round Queenstown we have no settlement and I might also state never will until we get men of the Taylor type in. I ask is it fair to charge Mr Taylor with trying to create island feeling because he wishes to populate his neglected country and if such is the case I think the more island feeling we have the better, as long as the feel is given from this end. The writer is evidently not a man who travels or he would see that there are not great tracts of good land like this in the North which are not cut up for settlement and why, because they don’t bother about island feeling in those parts but take all that they can get and ours too (as your statement proves). If you had been through this country I think you would change your opinion regarding best land being taken first, for you would see that for timber alone it is equal to any in the South Island. And as regards soil I can speak from experience as I have tested it and state it is hard to beat. And even the high country has good feed on it which was proved by a well known station owner who used to take sheep every summer to these parts and considered they did better in that country than on the flat. With regard to the railway extension policy which objects to the waste of five figures every year on extensions. To this you omit the loss on the total which ineludes the main and port lines, so how in the world can you favour extension? Can you give me a single branch line that pays in New Zealand bar port lines? As regards the Legislative Council you have got rather personal, so it is best left alone. In summing up I can’t see a single item in which his lines fail. Mr Taylor shows clearly in his addresses that he looks into the backblock as well as the future and doesn’t depend to the highway once a year in a car at election time to get information as to our wants. And I am quite sure if returned will be an asset to Wallace with his commercial training which will make him able to see the people’s wants. —I am, etc., X.Y. [Our correspondent has peculiar ideas of what constitutes personalities, and seems to have misread practically every comment we made on Mr Taylor’s speech.—Ed. S.T.]