"A MANAWATU SETTLER."

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3346, 15 November 1871, Page 3

"A MANAWATU SETTLER."

~* TO THE EDITOR OF THE INDEPENDENT. Sib, — I was sorry to see in a late issue of the Independent a letter signed as above, containing a most unfair attack upon an old settler in this province, whose only offence it that he has thought proper to open an hotel in the rising township of Palmerston. The description your correspondent gives of the boat, the house, and the business is simply an imaginary one ; but possibly ho finds that he can trust better to \m imagination than his actual knowledge in making out his case. He displays considerable ingenuity in bringing the Scandinavians to bear on the subject, as they are (he pets of the period with us, and ■we would sooner see ten British settlers go to the bad than a single Norwegian tempted to go astray. If the Scandinavians had displayed a tendency to drink in this or any other house, your correspondent might have been justified in referring to them, but it is well known that they have no tendency of the sort. They themselves would doubtless be considerably surprised to learn that their morals were being affeoted by a house to which they had never resorted. I have known intimately for several years the settler denounced by your correspondent, and have invariably found him a quiet, intelligent, well-conducted neighbour, who always p.vinced a desire to maintain both himself and his family in a respectable manner. I feel certain that the experience of the Manawatu settlers will t/greo with mine, and that they will repuf^gtte with indignation tho statements of vofii^rrespondenfc. I, myself, have strong -convict ons in favor of temperance, and would join in any movement calculated to promote it ; but I would never acknowledge or support a Temperance Reformer who made unjust and personal attacks upon a private individual. If letters like that of your correspondent are the weapons with which the tetotallers of this colony purpose to fight their battles, they will find them altogether unavailing, for the peoplo of this country have the old English prejudice for fair play, and they will not accept soci.il reforms which are in themselves good and true, if they are urged upon them with claptrap and misrepresentation. — I am, &c, Magisteb. Pahautanui, November 11, 1871.