COUNTRY VERSUS TOWN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 14, 1 September 1911, Page 4

COUNTRY VERSUS TOWN.

Mr Parker MeWinlay, a young man of Stirling, who is opposing Mr James Allen for the Bruce seat, declared in his first speech the other night that “a great deal of our legislation had been absolutely city schemes, and too often at tire expense of the country.” What ho wants is a strong country party in Parliament. The Christchurch “Press” ,agrees that the interests of the country settler are of the first importance and have not received from the present Government the consideration they deserve, but says there is no sense in deliberate attempts to set the country against the town, and Mr McKinlay was talking grievous nonsense when he asked:—“Why should they have to send their children by train to Dunedin to have them educated?” The answer, of course, is, because Stirling is a township with only a fraction of Dunedin’s population and the hgher educational institutions are naturally found where the population is large. Stirling, the “Press” presumes, offers the children of the district the usual good educational advantages of a small town; Mr McKinlay surely does not expect High Schools, and Technical Colleges, and University Colleges scattered all over Otago! Yet that is what; one might assume from his remark, that the country 1 people' l wbtfld 1 not receive their due consideration “until they got out in the country the idvantages that the city people had.”