OPEN COLUMN.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume 6, Issue 508, 30 November 1876, Page 2

OPEN COLUMN .

(To the Editor of the Stasxubd). PASTORAL ASSOCIATION. ~ Sib, —I think some little discussion on the action recently taken at Masterton, to separate from the existing society, would he beneficial 1 was sorry to notice that five members of the established society, convened a meeting to form a new one, as officers of the former they were precluded from taking any step calculated to injure it, and they certainly placed both themselves and the society in a false position by the action which they took. The question whether there are to be one or two associations in the future, apparently depends upon whether a central site can be agreed upon. Sometime ago a sub-committee was appointed to select such a site and reported its inability to obtain one on reasonable terms. I was impressed at the time with the idea that the conclusion at which the Sub-committee arrived was the conclusion to which it desired to come and that if the Secretary had been sent on his pony to secure a site he would have obtained a sntahle one at a nominal price. Any township in the district would make the society e present of a suitable site and the difficulty of obtaining ground which has been raised cry some is to my mind altogether an imaginary obstacle. The question of the best site is however a serious difficulty- 1- The site must be convenient for exhibitors. 2. It must be convenient for visitors. Touherenikan possesses the first advantage and is deficient in the second. Masterton on the contrary is stronger in the second qualification than the first. The empty pens on tne one hand and the satisfactory receipts at the gates on the other fully proved this last year. Either Oreytown Carterton or Tarotahi will probably be the centre, if any centre con be generally agreed to. The former township would offer more accomodation for visitors but the latter district would secure better the

support of Masterton. At present the dii£oulty seems to me to he an impossible one to arrange satisfactory, but possibly a little discussion upon it may tend to solve it. The manner in which Masterton in the first instance threw down the ganntlett has been in a measure atoned for by the moderate counsels which prevailed when the revolutionary meeting did actually take place, and possibly both ends of the district may be able to enter upon the question without either bitterness or illfeeling. Yours (fro. . J. Payton.