ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 74, 3 April 1877, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Q ■ [We are at all times ready to give expression .to every shade of opinion, but in no case do we hold responsible for the sentiments of our correspondents.] TO THE EDITOR OIT THE AKAEOA MAIL. Sir, —it is with great reluctance I take up the pen, even in self-defence ; but noticing - in your columns of the 27th inst., the business of the Akaroa and Wainui Road Board, I noticed ;i request from Joseph Libeau, of Duvauehelle's 13ay, to the effect that he might be al lowed to buy the short cut or old road, leading- down to Duvauehelle's Bay. The worthy chairman set forth the expense aud trouble attending the business, and Mr. Duxbury said the Board had no right to undertake the matter, it being a private ajfair. I presume his meaning to be as only tending to benefit the private interests of Libenu ; and he further said that the road was certainly of no service, from which I beg to differ very widely. Evidence of its great service, not only to ratepayers, but to the general public, is, by its numerous tracks, well worn by every foot passenger, and numbers of people on horseback, passing to and from the diil'erent bays, it being especially useful to people in.the immediate neighbourhood—perhaps' not so useful to Mr. Duxbury, or people at a greater distance. Mr. Lelievre was agreeable to entertain the request, providing all expenses and the full value of the ground were paid. Now, I might state, for general information, that the land adjoining the said road, on application for a site for the Head of the Bay Church, was valued at seventy-live pounds sterling, the halfacre, which will give the public an idea of the value of land in that locality. I would also call the attention of the public and the authorities to the shameful encroachments already made on that road. For instance, where the windlass stood for drawing up the ships on the slipway, and the place is well known ; it was placed on the Queen's chain for very obvious reasons, ois., to avoid seizure by creditors, if the ship-building firm of that day should fail; therefore the windlass was placed on the Queen's chain. But siuce the windlass was placed, the ship-builder reclaimed from thirty to forty feet of the beach. By the excavations from a dock, they dug out of the bank, aud from a sawpit, so that Libeau had no right to chain from the highwater mark of the present, or residents" on the beach might ofien extend their properties. Now, he has followed this reclamation and chained to the inch, which he has no right to do. The. line ought to be on a line with Mr. Piper's line of meadow fence, behind the site of the windlass, and through the middle of Carlisle's house. Where the windlass stood, Libeau is about forty feet outside the boundary of his ground, and enclosed that amount of roadway, making the place hardly* passable by the stench i'rom a pigsty, and the narrowness of the road. There are, likewise, two-thirds of the Queen's chain, to the length of eight or nine chains, enclosed with post and rail and gorse fence. As regards the opposition to the closing of this piece of road, there are remains of a post and rail fence yet, which was chopped down, when being civilly requested to remove it failed, and which a great many people jto see done, only they kept out of 'it; -nevertheless, they clamoured as much as anyone else, and as regards the detriment to his property by the road being there, it is mythical; it is as impudent an attempt to rob the public oE their road** as ever came under' my notice. We have had a hard job to obtain roads, and there is much less need to take from us what we have.— I am ,&c, . WACHT AM "RHINE.