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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 3
[miscellaneous paragraphs]
In the Christmas number of the Stationer we notice an account of a trade dinner given on the 14th November by Messrs John Haddon & Co. to their friends and employés.
The severest comment we have seen on the present state of New Zealand is in the Wanganui Herald. Writing of the colonial absentee proprietors who have lately had to pay income-tax at home, it says it wishes them a worse thing than has ever happened to them yet—to be driven back to New Zealand!
There may be an excuse for the absurd errors sometimes made by English writers as to New Zealand matters; but it has been reserved for an important Auckland paper to outdo them all. In a leading article full of the most amazing mis-statements about Hawke's Bay and its settlers, the writer descends to precise figures, and effectually « gives himself away. » He says: « In Waipawa county there are five road board districts containing 511,215 acres, and in these districts there are only five ratepayers! This, too, in a region which is fitted to support 100,000 people in ease and comfort. » The county of Waipawa contains thirteen road board districts and four town districts, and has a population of 7,451, and in that county there is no road district containing less than 25 ratepayers. A man who, with the Statistics of New Zealand on his shelf, puts in the mischievous nonsense which Tom, Dick, or Harry may choose to retail to him on the subject of land and population, should try some less responsible occupation than that of editor.