CORRESPONDENCE.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 3131, 11 December 1899, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

GRIN AND BEAR IT; TO THE EDITOR OF THK TTMARC HJBBALD. • My attention haß been drawn to the extraordinary terms m which Mr Evans hag thought fit to announce to the ratepayers the result of the voting on .-the Hdrbonr Board loan. As an official communication m compliance with an Act of Parliament I should think its impertinence is matchless. The ratepayers about Waimate, who m Bpite of bad ' weather and an obvious determination to refuse them the proper convenience of polling booths to which they were entitled, rolled up en masse to vote against the loan, are referred to contemptuously as a " misguided few." That we, have been misguided is quite true, but it was years ago when we listened to the deceptive stories of the emiasaries of Timaru, who toift us that £100,000 would be ample for the work and that the revenues from the harbour would suffice to pay the interest without recourse to rating. Then we are admonished '• to pay our fair share of rates when asked to do so," as if we had any choice ! Does Mr Evans know what fairness m ans f ,. 4\ hen he came down to Waimate to guide us how to vote he expatiated on the thonsands of tons of grain, and the thousands of carcases of mutton shipped from the harbour during the last season, and said that it was for the sake of this trade that the loan was needed. Well, what produceß all tliis grain and mutton ? Not the. bricks and mortnr, nor cvt-n " the beat bluestone rock" of Timaru, which Mr Evans almost implied had been placed there by Providence for the very purpose of making his rubble wall; not the men who stand inTimtuu shops selling yards j of tnpp. and plugs of tobacco, nor the house proprietors, the millers and grain ppeculators, nor the navvies who will do the work and spend their wages for the benefit of the Timaru tradespeople. The 'limaru people who voted solidly for the loan are just those who m fairness ought to have the'least say m it. They produce nothing to make the trade of the harbour. It comes from the land, not from the town. My land is forty-nine miles by road from Timaiu ; I was placed m the Harbour District by the Governor's Proclamation without being allowed any choice ; 1 am paying the same rates on capital value as the people of Timaru whose property abuts upon the harbour ; and this is called paying a " fair share." Pray preach fairness to yosr own people, Mr Evans. They ought to pay twenty times the proportion on capital value that 1 pay, and five times the proportion that the people about Waimate pay. Inveigled into their trap by the lying prophets of twenty-four years ago, 1 am kept m the trap by their worthy successors who would pick all the flesh ofl my bones to feed the maw of the ravening monster they have fashioned. Sir John Coode, before they put their hands to the fatal w>tk, warned us what sort of a monster it would prove; Mrßlackett, the Government Engineer, when it was half formed, saw its horrid tendency and recommended that it should be blown to piec s ; and I honestly believe that if an earthquake were to rive it to atoms before a penny of this loan could be raised and expended, it would be a mercy to the district compared with what, the Harbour Board are bent upon doing. 1 am, etc., Waihao Biding.