GORSE FENCES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1995, 16 January 1890, Page 3

GORSE FENCES.

TO THE EDITOR. Sis.,—l see by your report of the Geraldine Hoad Board meeting that the Hon. T. H. Wigley has written to the board requesting an extension of time to grow gorse on the public roads, because he has not been able to get it cleared at a satisfactory price, and the board have granted his request on condition that he clears a bit of a track at a place where some of th« members are presumably interested in getting through with a reaper and binder. We never hear of the board being so conciliatory to a poor man. It was reported six months ago that Mr Wigley had said that some of the fellows who were starving in Hilton ought to trim his fences and grub the !f gorse for less than 2s a chain. Now if Mr Wigley will fall to and do the work himself I will undertake to pay him £lO if he can get over half-a-chain a day. That would be earning 6s a week at bia rate of valuing labor, and as a well-fed man should do more work than a starving one we are not to suppose that the Hon. T. H. Wigley is among the starving crew, such as him ought to be able to get tucker. Ho does not spend a penny a year on labor for every acre of land he holds, and yet our public bodies connive with him to starve the working men into working at what he would call satisfactory prices, and the poor struggling farmer, who cultivates his small patch of land in a way that is beneficial to society, must be kept to the letter of the law. Can you, struggling workers, be starved into thinking, or will you rather die like dogs ? You have the power in your own hands if you were united. Why do you allow men to put burdens on your hacks that they themselves will not touch with one of their fingers?—l am, etc., Kakahit.