Onepunga Falls.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19268, 3 January 1931, Page 2

Onepunga Falls.

LATE CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor. Dear Sir,—As your special article of a couple of Saturdays ago about the above falls is very misleading, I am writing these few lines to warn any readers who may be tempted to visit this spot that they will be disappointed and their journey fruitless. The chief obstacle is that the falls are evidently on private property and the owner absolutely forbids visitors, and enquirers are by no means welcome, -while on the gate through which your writer advises sightseers to proceed a trespass notice is affixed.

I believe over twenty cars made a trip out this way on Boxing Day, and in the words of one to whom I spoke (after I myself had been disillusioned a few days later) they were kicked out. Even if the falls were open to the public, your writer’s inference that they are a short distance from the road is very misleading, as this writer walked some miles without seeing or even hearing the falls. In conclusion, I must protest against a responsible paper publishing such an article without verifying the facts, and against the writer of the article who should have made enquiries before publishing an article so likely to send large numbers on a wildgoose chase. Hoping this will catch the writer’s eye and the notice of other intending visitors to the forbidden land.—l am, etc., HAD.

Unemployed In Grey.

To the Editor. Dear Sir, —I notice in your issue of December 29 a letter from Mr J. O’Brien, M.P., replying to mine of December 23. Mr O'Brien says my letter contains glaring misstatements about the actual condition of affairs here, and would tend to create a wrong impression in the minds of your readers. In my letter I stated that those out of work were mostly strangers, and the registrations were round about fiftyfive. I also said that work had been found by the County and Borough Council, which was quite correct. I think the trouble must be that these men obtained work without the assistance of Mr O’Brien. I referred to the unemployed in the Grey district only, and did not include the district of Buller, Inangahua and the southern part of Westland, of which Hokitika is , the centre and deals with its own unemployed, if any. In order to try and refute my statement Mr O’Brien brings all these counties in, and even with this I doubt very much whether he could rake up a thousand unemployed. With regard to men not registering owing to no proper post office being available and mentioning Bell Hill as a case in point, I would point out there are half a dozen post offices between Bell Hill and Greymouth, where men could register. It appears to me to be rather an insult to the workers’ intelligence to say they did not know they could register at Post Offices, seeing this had been extensively advertised in the local Press, to say nothing about the broadcasting that has been done throughout the Dominion. In reference to the unemployed sawmill workers, the timber trade is admittedly slack. Mr O’Brien says that Mr Tinley has repeatedly said publicly there are 850 sawmill workers out of employment. This may be correct, but it should be known that this estimate is based on the fact that it includes the Buller, Inangahua and Westland districts. Despite what the M.P. says, there are out of this number a good many getting sleepers, poles, posts, etc., which will in due course be taken over by the Department, and private people who deal and market same. Hundreds of thousands of fencing posts, poles for telegraph and telephone lines have been sent into Canterbury and the North Island in the last few years, and have been got by men working by themselves or in small co-operative parties. The same obtains now, and these must be deducted from the number said to be unemployad. Mr O’Brien ridicules my statement as to the men who have gone up creeks, making fair wages looking for a bit of gold, and wants their names and the locality. If Mr O’Brien makes a few inquiries and keeps his eyes and ears open he can easily find out both for himself. I enclose a clipping from the Grey “ Star,” of December 30, reporting a meeting of the Unemployed Committee, at which the Mayor, Mr Greenslade, said: — It has been suggested that we have 1000 unemployed in our district. If a fair proportion of these were registered, we should have had a far larger sum to distribute than £SO. The onus is upon the unemployed to register. I understand that very few additional registrations have been received, and it makes one wonder whether 1000 men are really unemployed, or looking for employment. In conclusion, sir, I still maintain there are very few genuine unemployed in the Grey district. —I am. etc., VERITAS.