THE TOLL OF THE FOREST.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1427, 30 April 1912, Page 4

THE TOLL OF THE FOREST.

HEROES AND HEROINES. Mr. James Mackenzie, the nearly-ap-pointed Surveyor-General, gave expression last night to a strong plea for tho backblocks settlers. Tho occasion was a presentation to Mr. Mackenzie, and in expressing his thanks ho permitted himself a very interesting digression. Apologising for alluding to what might bo called a question of policy, he said that the great cry of the back-blocks sottleTS, among whom he had moved so long, was for roads. "I should bo glad," continued Mr. Mackenzie, "to seo railwaymaking havo ft rest for a rear or tuo, and let the money bo devoted to building roads, and giving men who have .not so much as a pig track some sort of access to their land. We run through to Auckland, in the express, but there arc men whose farms are away back beyond 20 miles of mud tracks, and no roads at all, and they cannot get access to the Tailway. Let them have at least some sort of access—these pioneers, tho heroes and heroines of the back-blocks. If wo only knew the toll of tho forest, -and what these people have to contend with! Sick children carried over tho mountain-tops on their fathers' and mothers' backs before they can get to aid of any kind, women going into the settlements to perform the highest duty of womanhood, and then, rather than go back to tho isolation of the forest, committing suicide —those are the sort of things that you l nin against, not once or twice, but dozens of times, in your travels. I don't know of anything more necessary than to help in getting roads into tho pack-blocks."