The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 168, 26 February 1878, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26.

Owing to necessary road extensions in the Akaroa and Wainui district, and the consequent purchase of land from the settlers, a and, we may say, a most injurious error, financially speaking, has arisen through the system of arbitration, which, for the carrying out of the requirements of the district, together with a desire on the part of the Road Board to, if possible, enforce their works with the least amount of trouble to owners of property, has been resorted to. That fair marketable value should be given for land is perfectly reasonable and just, but that advantage should be taken of an actual necessity, which should be for the benefit of the district, by placing a fictitious value on property, is certainly neither creditable to those who receive the money, nor to those who award it. Something of this kind has been going on here lately, and we desire to draw attention to this matter. It must be borne in mind that the funds allocated to road boards are so appropriated for special purposes, namely road making, with attendant expenses, and, that any wrong expenditure of these said funds will have to be accounted for to the public, whose pockets will, probably, in the future, be called upon to pay for the mal-administrationthat may exist at the present. £Jow these said expenses are understood to be the usual and reasonable cost of forming, arbitrarily to a certain extent it may be, in the case of taking a road through private property, but, still, only wh=\t is empowered by the Act, necessary roads for the improvement of communication throughout the district. It will be readily understood then, that if exorbitant prices are asked and given for the land required to bo purchased for the carrying out of these works, the funds of the Road Boards are being wrongly expended, and the publicdefrauded. We trust that in future, in cases where the Akaroa and Wainui Road Board, or any other road board in this district, have occasion to resort to arbitration, that care will be taken to do justice to both the parties interested, and not that the public should be made to suffer for the benefit of any one owner of property.