THE RACECOURSE RESERVE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 4462, 3 October 1883, Page 2

THE RACECOURSE RESERVE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — It was not my intention to interfere further in any discussion on this very vexed question, but I cannot allow such statements as were made at the last meeting of Council to pass without comment. In the first place I beg to give an unqualified denial to the remarks of His Worship that any endeavours have ever been made to have the Reserve handed over solely to the Club ; and secondly, I deny that any lease has ever been offered to the Club. A Committee, I believe, recommended to the Council that a 21 years' lease should be offered to the Jockey Club, but the offer was never submitted. On the other hand, the Club, considering for several reasons that a short lease would not answer their purpose, by resolution passed at a special meeting on Januar}' 4, 1883, respectfully requested the Council to grant a 37 years' lease, at a rental of £75 per annum — the rights of cricket and the Agricultural Society to be protected — but up to this day not a word in reply has ever been received. Now, I should like to ask which side has been guilty of discourtesy ? Perhaps the Council thought Mr. Davidson's resolution a sufficient reply to the Club, when he proposed " That this Council use every legitimate means in its power to prevent the diversion of the Reserve now known as the Racecourse from uses for which it was originally granted to tho the Superintendent of the Province, viz., the improvement of tho streets of Town of New Plymouth, and that the Government be furnished with a copy of this resolution, with a request that the terms of the new grant be in keeping with the original grant." — 1 am, &c, Jas. Paul, Hon. Sec. T.J.O.