THE SUMMIT ROAD.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 668, 8 December 1882, Page 2

THE SUMMIT ROAD.

To the Editor.

Sir, —I think it is a great pity people should write to the papers about a subject of which they appear to know nothing; for instance, I see in your issue of Friday last a letter signed Ratepayer, which is a tissue of misstatements, and leads one to the conclusion that Ratepayer had either not properly read your report of the County Council's meeting or that he has wilfully perverted tbe truth. He says the member for Berard, after opposing the making of the Summit road, and giving one reason after another against it, turns round and supports an amendment to spend £15. Now, if he had read your report carefully he would have seen it was Mr Joblin'B motion I opposed, which in my opinion would have effectually stopped the road from being made. For if proper plans and specifications could have been prepared in time, I think it would have involved a preliminary outlay of a sum that the Council would not be justified in expending on the very poor chance of obtaining the Government grant, as I am informed by an engineer who knows the line that this could not be done under from £70 to £100. and the rough plan and estimate that Mr Wilkins is preparing for £15 will perhaps do as well. lam not at all opposed to the Summit road. I think it will be very useful to Le Bon's, Okain's and Little Akaloa, but it is quite useless to the Berard Riding, which Ratepayer says will be so largely interested in it. Who in that riding would drag themselves up to the top of a high hill for the purpose of going a 20 miles route to the hill top junction, when by going down hill they can get upon a good coach road which will lead them to tho same place at a little more than half the length ? I do not think anyone in the Akaroa and Wainui road district would be rated for a road tbat is utterly useless to them, and very little of which is in their district. Even Waikerakikari will not benefit by it, for when their surveyed road is formed it will be four or five miies nearer for them to go to Little River via the coach road than by the Summit. It is provided for in the act that the district interested in the road shall pay the special rate, and I do not think the Berard Riding can be classed under that head. But if it is true that ten times the amount alloted for the construction of main roads has already been applied for, and as the present Government are not likely to put themselves out to oblige a constituency, which returns an opposition member, I am afraid we shall not be called upon to decide who shall pay the rate. —Yours, etc., W. T. MASEFIELD.