TO THE EDITOR OF THE AKAROA MAIL.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 71, 23 March 1877, Page 3

TO THE EDITOR OF THE AKAROA MAIL.

Sir, —I noticed in your last account of the Eoad Board meeting, that Mr. Shadbolt proposed to get J. Wooddill to lay off the Long Bay Eoad, as any other surveyor might make a worse job of it than Mr. Townsend did. Now I should like to ask this Head of the Bay King what he knows about surveying roads, and the idea of proposing a man that is no surveyor at all to do a job like this I cannot tell, without it is for the want of knowing better. He silently makes a cut at the survey department about a line of road he never saw in his life, nor interested himself in either. As regards Mr. Townsend's blunders on this line of road, Mr. B. Shadbolt knows as much about them as a cow knows about a musket. He is one of the many, I am sorry to say, that goes into the Eoad Board for the benefit of his own district, without thinking that the outlying districts require roads at all. What would our dainty little town of Akaroa be worth if it was not for her dairy farmers spotted all over the Mils ? Have not these men a right to a passable road to cart their produce to market. My opinion, Mr. Editor, is that a member of a road board should wish to see more roads made than the one he has to travel to his own dcor on. I notice (he says) the board have no funds for this job, but he must find another yarn now, for that one is threadbare and eomcompletely worn out, and won't take any more in this quarter, I can assure him. I thought at the Agricultural Show's dinner this gentleman's remarks savoured much about the advancement of the Peninsula. If he still holds those views, I would advise him to put no more obstructions in the way of surveying or making good roads on the Peninsula. If he cannot do this without capsizing his own little pet schemes, I would advise him to throw up the sponge on road board matters, and let some other gentleman take his seat whose views are not closed altogether against the wants of his fellow-creatures.— Yours, &c., INTEEEOEEM.