THE WRETCHED PAST !

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3831, 9 November 1936, Page 5

THE WRETCHED PAST !

HANSARD OF 187 G QUOTED. In the course of his felicitous remarks at the Paterangi School diamond jubilee celebrations on Friday afternoon the Hon. W. Lee Martin, Minister of Agriculture and M.P. for the district, took the unusual course of “digging up ancient history” by quoting from copies of Hansard dated 1876—sixty years ago, with refer-, ence to the Waikato in general, to show that conditions nowadays have very much advanced. The Minister said Sir George Grey, during the Ministry of the Hon. Harry Atkinson, had trenchantly criticised the sale by the State of 10,0 CO acres of the extensive Piako-Waikato Swamp, at 18s 3d per acre. Also that Mr Chamberlain, M.P., had condemned the proposal to extend the AucklandMercer railway line southward to Ngaruawahia, arguing that it would never be possible to make the railway pay. It had been a losing proposition to date, and should certainly not be extended. He also referred to the Government voting £383,000 for the promotion of immigration from Britain—a sum out of all proportion to the country’s finances and to any benefits that could possibly accrue to the colony. Mr Lee Martin commented very briefly on the changes that have come to pass in the W aikato and in the Dominion generally, and went on to praise Paterangi as a farm district unexcelled in the whole, of the fertile Waikato.