THE Bay of Plenty Times.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume V, Issue 421, 23 September 1876, Page 2

THE Bay of Plenty Times.

"THE SPIRIT OF THE TIMES SHALL TEACH ME SPEED." KING JOHN, ACT IV.

Saturday,. September 23, 1876

It is seldom . that we find our contemporary the New Zealand Herald wrong in. its out district news; that journal paying 1 very particular attention to all matters concerning the welfare oi the entire Province, and not, as is so often the case with city journals, ignoring the country districts in a great measure. However, in regard to the Opotiki and Ormond Road, we very much regret, for the sake of this district, that the JSerald's remarks are quite wrong. The Herald says that " the Opotiki and Ormond Road has been completed, and is reported to be as good a bridle track as any on the East Coast." The real facts of the case are as follow : — The road is completed on the Opotiki end, from Opotiki to within, one mile and a half of the Motu River, a distance of thirty-four and a half miles, and is in good, order. The timber for the Motu Bridge is cut, below the falls, but that, and the necessary iron, &c, for the erection of the bridge cannot be transported to the bridge site, till the road up to it is completed. From Motu to Ormond (Poverty Bay end), a distance of about forty-four miles, is in a very dilapidated state, owing to the heavy floods experienced in that part of the country last January. A large party of Armed Constabulary was sent up to rectify the damages thus caused, but the men' were, unfortunately, almost immediately withdrawn, and placed on. the local toorks of the Gisborne Road Board; Unless men are sent to work on this portion of the line, with the present available labor, it will take quite five months to make the damages good. The grades are of sxxch a nature throughout the line of road, that at any future time it can be expanded, with little comparative cost, into a dray road. It is a matter of surprise that the Armed Constabulary should have been taken oflNihis work, for had such not been the case, the road would have been open for through traffic in another two months from this. "We presume the late honorable member for this electorate deserves the thanks of the Gisborne Road Board, and settlers in that part of the constituency, for this piece of jobbery.. "We think Captain Morris would do well to remind the Government that the Armed Constabulary is maintained by the Colony at large, and not by any particular portion of it, and point out the desirability of the men taken off purely local, and. placed again, on colonial works. . c