ROAD BOARD POLITICS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 377, 2 March 1880, Page 2

ROAD BOARD POLITICS.

To the Editor of the Akaroa Mail.

Sir, —I ask for space to make a few remarks on a letter in your paper of this date bearing the name of " Brasidas." Passing over his introductory and complimentary remarks to myself, which appears to be of the usual bush lawyer style —"no case abuse side." Now for facts—if I paid rates for as many years as he says (seventeen) surely that would be as good a claim for a road as one who only paid rates for three years, but the secret lies in Mr Bell getting elected on the Eoad Board to which however I never aspired—hence no road. He then refers to the German Bay property ; " Situation bad." What a pity I did not consult " Brasidas :, when I happened to purchase land ; all would have been right then— " grade, situation," everything. But let me see, is he not " drawing a red herring across the scent?" The German Bay property has paid rates for about fifteen years, and I have no hesitation in saying these rates alone would be sufficient to make a road to the property, but then the Road_ Board wanted the money for roads to their own.

Let the General wait, says the Road BoftrdJ We can get men like "Brasidas" to call me the man with a greviance, and the " serpent that hiss, hiss, hisses," This is my reward in lieu of roads, and what I get ~ for having paid about one-twelfth of the whole rates in the district, and then I am asked by this worthy why I don't assist men like him in taxing the people to make roads for myself, and manipulating the money into my own pocket. No, thank Goodness, the charge of taxing my fellowman for selfish purposes can never be laid to my charge. " Brasidas " uses the usual amount of Road Board procrastination when he talks of the " Public Works Act," and grade of 1 in 4, but time is everything with him. Any man of sense wanting to make a good road over the range would select either the spur to the north or the one to the south of the Balguerie valley, * not working up the valley like a corkscrew to ascend the range. I now come to the road he calls a "Shoot," and with all deference to his conceit, for knowledge he,, has none of the Balguerie valley or its line of road, the grade throughout is, with the exception of a few chains in one place, very fair, and will meet all the requirements of the people in that direction. The road leading to my farm-is lin 3£, and I have no difficulty in taking up half a ton in a two horse dray, but then if the grade was right something else would be wrong when the [exchequer is low, with me it has been a case of bear and forbear «, with the Road Board for years, but I found thatmy turn would never come without agitation. lam now on the path to seek justice, and intend to follow that path, hoping to find it. lam well aware* of the difficulties that beset my path where men like " Brasidas " and the Road Board crow adopt the Captain Moonlite style of veneer to cover their actions. What bunkum to talk about the Road Board being a milch cow; the ratepayers are the milch cow, and the milk, has been extracted from me by the fangs of the law to make reads for tne various ** numbers of the Road Board and their following, Had there been one spark of manly feeling amongst them they would have said—well, if we extort rates from* this man we will at least give him some-. thing for them. I challenge "Brasidas " to justify this conduct of the Road Board. But my case is far from being a solitary one; look at the dozens of people living over the range, and this side, who have been struggling for the last twenty years to get a little money by drawing milk from the cow's tit, and the Road Board have been drawing it from them and me, and for what ? Bah I " Brasidas," clear up these facts, and let us have n<f more of your Moonlite veneer.

Youra, &c,

GEO. ARMSTRONG.

Akarao, 27th Feb., 1880,