MR. FIRTH'S MODEST LITTLE PROPOSAL.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 161, 13 October 1883, Page 3

MR. FIRTH'S MODEST LITTLE PROPOSAL.

The last proposal of Mr J. C. Firth's beats all the other modest requests in favour of the Meat Freezing Company hollow. A short distance from his mill, in Queen-street, there was a block of old ramshackle shanties which have lately been demolished. With a calloue and unsesthetie lack of appreciation for the crumbling monuments of Auckland's primitive past, the unsightly ratwarren was condemned to destruction, and the New Zealand Insurance Company made preparations to erect a handsome block of buildings on the site. This was J. C. Firth's opportunity. With a show of solicitude for the public health and a taste for the picturesque which do credit to his head and heart, he suggested that the City should purchase the site and reserve it as another lung for the City. He did not say how much of the £3000 a year, which the purchase money would entail on the ratepayers, he was willing to sacrifice out of his own fortune, on the altar of urban oesfcketicism and public spirit, but that, of course, was a mere oversight.

Of late years, since he retired from the turmoils of politics and public affairs, in order to devote his attention to pollard, pollen, and Matamata, Mr Firth has from time to time distinguished himself in a mild way by propounding various theories and social reforms. He once propounded the idea that there never was and never could be any such thing as Luck. But at the, came time.' he was himself one of the most striking living examples of Luck in the Colony. It was Luck that brought him out to New Zealand! ■ When he was a red-hot advocate of the Waikato War, Luck spared him from its toils, itfl/dangets, and its'losses. Luck brought tj&av into contact ; with William Tliijmpsbn, the wnaeof the broad fertile plains of Matamata«,~j

Luck placed Mr Firth in occupati6>jH^^^H ancestral land when Thompson — UQ^^fl^^H 1 is own people and descendants, but for Josiah — went up among the angel|fl^^|HH have been Luck, combined with a natvu^^^^^H the aesthetic that moved Mr Firth to "^Hfl^H touching wooden tribute to the memory^H^H dear departed, on which was inscribed his nHH shining virtues, and his last testamentary speecnM — " These were his last words — • Let Sohaia^ remain in possession of Ms run /'" Luck made Mr Firth a Director of the Bank of Zealand, enabled him. to acquire the freehold of a princely estate, to purchase expensive machinery, to convert that estate into smiling cornfields — grist for the mill — fat pastures — a land flowing with milk and honey. In short, Luck has attended him like hid shadow.

Luck having elevated Josiali to the pinnacle of wealth, influence, and social distinction, now blesses him with leisure to propound numerous theories in letters to the Press, nnd to indulge his fads for aesthetieism, philanthrohy, and social reform. But unfortunately Luck does not go ! still further and compel public appreciation of I his deliverances. Luck made him -a great miller and land-owner, but apparently it could not make him a social reformer' and gelf-sacrificing public benefactor. Something more than mere luck is required to make such a man. Mr Firth's theories and public deliverances are always influenced by his surroundings and associations. They are somewhat mixed, like bis finest "flours." This applies with peculiar force to that modest little suggestion of his in respect to the site near his mill. Contemplating it from his window, his weakness for the aesthetic overcame him. He did not pause to think of the insignificance of the area, or of the enormous comparative cost of its purchase in respect to its public utility. It never occurred to his great mind that it might look somewhat inconsistent — to use no harsher term — for the principal owner of a quarter of a million acres of land at Matamata, besides insignificant blocks of a few thousand acres ia otjher parts of the country, to pose as a in advocating the purchase, at - thei ' public cost, of a few roods of ground in Auckland for a little park. Grreat minds soar above such trifling considerations. He never reflected that it would probably be useless for any other purpose than as the sight of a cabstand, and a public monument to J. C. Firth. Any other less unselfish than he might, in similar circumstances, have speculated on the chances of acquiring 1 the site for himself on the first favourable opportunity and building another mill, or of establishing, at the public cost, gardens and fountains all round the existing mill, in order to make it a thing of beauty and a joy for ever.