STRATFORD NEWS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XL, Issue 9267, 17 December 1891, Page 2

STRATFORD NEWS.

• .. — [FROM OUR RESIDENT AGENT.] December 16.— There is high glee among the Opunako Road settlers at tho failure of tho second attempt to upset tho poll for tho No. 3 loan. The resident ratepayers in the area affected nre, by ad overwhelming majority, favorable to the loan, but the large number of absentee holdings enables a few dissentients to almost, but not quite, rule tho roost. Last autumn a poll was taken, and the proposal carried by a narrow majority, but the Colonial Treasurei had his attention called to a trifling informality and refused to advance the money. Greatly disappointed, the settlers, this spring, put the machinery in motion, and again carried the poll. by a narrow majority. Again the dissentients sought to upset tho poll on a technicality, but wero this time hoißt with their own petard, the County solicitor successfully contending that the R.M., to whom they had applied had no jurisdiction. • Whilst fully sympathising with the settlers, I should have much preferred that the technical points relied on by the petitioners had been argued out and either sustained or rejected on their merits. The various Acts from which local bodieß derive their powers overlap and conflict • in a fearful and wonderful manner, and a decision throwing light upon even one or two of their intricacies would bo welcome. It may be safely averred that there is more cantankerousness to tho equare mile in this district than in any part of Her Majesty's dominions, and if you meet a prematurely aged man whoso groy hairs and furrowed brow tell a tale of anxious days and sleepless nights, you may be sure ho is the clerk of a local body — poor beggar !