The Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, 19th. AUGUST, 1940. EAST COAST HIGHWAY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 201, 19 August 1940, Page 4

The Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. MONDAY, 19th. AUGUST, 1940. EAST COAST HIGHWAY

WHY, whenever Whakatane chooses to make representations to the Government for the introduction of a main highway through the town, there should be a shriek .jf of hysterical dissension, from the stilted press of a town forty miles distant, is an enigma which will probably remain unsolyed until the crack of doom. By its peculiarity of situation, and the rapid growth of its back country, Whakatane: has jumped to the forefront in the Bay of Plenty, in the past ten years, yet i,t still suffers from complete lack of main road access. Its citizens, being progressive, have set to work to rectify the position, and the new route for the proposed highway as our readers know so well is through the town and along the coastal front through Ohope. If this innocent suggestion ,is likely to harm Opotiki, as the press of that town would have us believe, we should be glad to hear it,. It is hard to believe that the raised could have public backing, knowing the people of Opotiki as we do, and if the 'News' has invented tits case then it is showing a very parochial and unfriendly attitude. The persistency of attack would become annoying, were it .not for a certain element of ironical humour which is never absent from its. methods. The perpetual habit of the 'News', quoting and re-quoting passages from its previous broadsides, resembles nothing more than a dog chasing dts Own tail, and its reiteration of 'the shocking waste of money' is so much clap-trap. It would be wiser to leave these decisions to the Minister, and his engineer advisors,, who may be even, more qualified than the 'News' to venture an opinion. Whakatane is out to improve itself and the; development of the country districts which regard it as their, centre. There is nothing ulterior in its motives, there could, be nothing, and it seems unfortunate that the public mouthpiece of our southern friends should take up such a narrow-minded and limited attitude. There lis no reason ..in the.wide world why there should be any difference of opinion as to which route the main highway should take and the suggestion of Mr A. J. Canning that the three engineers should meet and confer on the point, could not be fairer. The Southern Bay of Plenty is fast coming linto .its own, and though somewhat behind other districts in. development, will, by the co-operation of the residents become a smiling and' prosperous asset to the Dominion. The indications are all around us now, and why any section of the community should seek to jeopardise the construction of a main highway for obscure petty reasons of parochial flavour is beyond our knowledge or comprehension. Unless constructive and tangible reasons can be put forward, it would become ur friends to be less meddlesome in affairs which concern other centres and once again, in plainer language,, to mind their own business.