THE HILL RUNS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13837, 24 February 1909, Page 7

THE HILL RUNS.

EXTREME SUBDIVISION V. SAXHT. To the Editor of the "Timaru Herald." Sir, —Let me tell your readers a little story. The other week a number of the Mackenzie Country people decided that the Timaru drapers'' businesses were too large and quite capable of extreme subdivision; that in spite of bad debts artd the reduced purchasing power of the people the drapers', profits were still too large. So they appointed two of their number —Donald Mackay and Ewan Cameron—who Had not been out of Lake Ohau and Godley Gorges for eighteen and twenty years who had not seen Christchurch nor Timaru in all that time, to go down and see if the .Timaru drapery establishments were capable of subdivision. And they reported that they were, and ■ (.■commended that all drapers' frontages .should be subdivided into little starvation shops occupying four feet frontages, and to ignore the'interior of the establishments altogether; the main idea was to get the subdivisions so small that if the poor little starved draper expanded his chest beyond the normal, lie would crush,and ruin some of the finery and top-toggery he had displayed. And some of the tales '• rung iu " to Donald and Ewan were that what the Timaru people wanted was not good linen and woollens, but Manila fibre, flanuellette, and corkscrew mattresses. Donald greatly admired a new motor car standing in a garage, which he reckoned was the latest pattern bullock dray imported from Sydney, while Ewan reckoned that Craigie's drainage works were all wrong in principle, as the septic tanks and outlets should be on the top of Mount Horrible instead of on the sea. shore.

Of course all this was very absurd,but not a whit more so than practical people view the suggestions made as to cutting up of the high country into small farms. And the moral is for people to mind their own business, and to allow, the subdivision of the runs to be fought out by practical sheep men, as to where subdivision is necessary, to what extent, and on what conditions the country will be relet. Outside his business and municipal matters Mr Craigie is necessarily a theorist, and he knows as much about the back country as the writer does of the value of his —Mr Craigie's —stock-in-trade. Some of us have given him moral support in his Timaru improvement schemes, have made special trips to Timaru to help to give him fresh leases of office, and the least he can do is to keep clear of a fight that may involve loss of homes to people who have stood faithful to the Mackenzie during all its poverty-stricken years, and are ' now reaping a fair measure of success for that faith.

To the pastoral tenants of the high country I would first make this observation, that if you think your homes are worth fighting for, organise to show your side of the question. The dnv is' past when you thought calm indifference and contempt would choke /ff the extreme subdivision agitation. — I am, etc., T. D. BURNETT. Mt. Cook, Feb. 22nd, 1909,