The Evening Star MONDAY, JUNE 26, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2607, 26 June 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, JUNE 26, 1871.

It must be very pleasant to the Provincial Executive to have so smooth

and easy a session. Mr Reid must feel himself in Paradise, when he looks around and witnesses only smiling supporters of his authority ; meek lambs who do as he directs, without being snarled and growled at as his followers were last session. But the fact is there is nothing substantial to quarrel about. He deserves the compliment of having reduced the Province to a nearly bankrupt condition, and he has now a splendid opportunity of displaying his genius for Government by extricating it from its difficulties. We look forward to the financial propositions of the Treasurer with some curiosity, especially when on looking backward we find such evidence of waste and mismanagement. We dare say many of our readers regard such expressions as the mere claptrap of party. It is the fashion of the supporters of the self-styled liberal party to meet facts by endeavoring to throw discredit upon those who expose the fallacies they advocate. The Evening Star has been their especial bane, and - n ot only hired political buffoons, but men who arrogate to themselves the position of gentlemen have aided in giving currency to a report that the proprietor is under obligations that bind him to the advocacy of a particular political course. Were it not that the slanderous falsehood has been repeated until many believe it, we should not have thought it necessary _to waste words or ink to contradict it. Once for all, then, we affirm that never since this journal passed into the hands ot the present proprietor, has it been under any obligation except to the public who have supported it; never has coercion been attempted—never would it have been submitted to. The Evening Star was purchased subject to no political conditions, and none have been attempted to be imposed upon it. Free in every respect to think, speak, and act, the only object kept in view has been the public good, and this will continue to be the first object of its public advocacy so long as it remains in our hands. In no party spirit, thenj we invite attention to the present crippled condition of the Province, and to the waste of our very limited resources through unskilful road engineering in the past. We have frequently drawn attention to this fact; and now that railways are projected, and it seems probable may be made at as light a cost, and maintained at a much less (expense than metalled roads, the question assumes still greater importance. In these muddles of the past the present Hoad Engineer is in nowise implicated. In fact, the evidence we are about to adduce is drawn f; -n "'h 10 i«ia berore the jprovmcnd Council during ,the present session. This report proves first; —that the past action of the Provincial Council in refusing to sell land, hao led to waste of labor and money, through inability to complete works projected. After detailing what has been done on the road between Tuapeka and Tokomairiro, the Engineer of Roads and Works concludes his observations thus:—

In the view of these facts, I need scarcely repeat what I have in previous reports.urged in favor of the prosecution of this work, as its great importance to the Tuapeka and Waitahuna districts is manifest; but I may direct the attention of the Government to the fact that until these, are completed, phe amount of work hitherto accomplished upon this road-line is lyin',] useles', aid of no advantage to the population intended to he benefited.

A little further on in the report, notice is drawn to the road Glenomaru to Outlin’s River, jn which two contracts have been completed; but —

Until the construction is further extended, that already done is of but liltlc use to the settle's in that neighborhood.

The next work lying useless is between Queenstown and Martin’s Bay, when we are informed that—

The present portion is of but little use until the work is carried across the saddle at Lake Harris, and down the Hollyford Valley.

By the way, we believe Dr Hector condemns the route taken as being the most difficult instead of the easiest gradient. If so, enquiry should be made. So much for works unfinished, that but for the poverty induced by the self-styled liberal party, might have been repaying the outlay on construction, by lightening the labor and cost of distribution of goods and produce. The annoyance is that all this might have been avoided without in the slightest degree interfering with alterations in our land laws, but under the plea of land reform we have this stagnation. But there is a second aspect of the case, which is equally important, and which should convince all unprejudiced men of the necessity of placing only competent persons in office, With very few exceptions, tho work in hand and done latterly, has been making fresh roads between places, where former roads existed. The Evening Star has been condemned in no measured terms, for having frequently asserted that our road engineering was a disgrace to us : but hero is proof. This road at the Round Hill is to be “ a saving in height of not less than t( 600 feet, as compared with the present

“ track.” Not knowing the district personally, we assume “ a track ” to mean the main road. A newly constructed deviation from Palmerston to Eweburn “ enables the traffic to avoid what “in former times w T as the worst part of “ this road a new line of road has been formed between Dunedin and North Taieri, near Silverstream : a track is finished between Port Chalmers and Blneskin, a road between Dunedin and Blueskin, and a track between Dunedin and Port Chalmers. These and some others on the goldfields show how little real scientific skill has been evinced in times past in selecting the best routes. We of course except the present Engineer and present Executive from being parties to these gross blunders of the past, but so palpable are they that they point to the necescity in future of laying out our money only after careful survey. And this brings us to a third consideration : the expenco of maintenance of these roads, the very best of which must shortly be superseded by cheap railways. We leave the following extract from the report to tell its own tale of poverty, merely pressing upon the Provincial Council that this inability to conserve what has been constructed, is the result of the factions action of the last Provincial Council: and our readers will do well to remember that the damage done to a road by neglect to lay metal on, seriously increases the cost of maintenance, as it is more expensive to put a bad road into good order than to maintain a good one. Mr Barr says :

In the metalling and gravelling of the main roads, the most extens ve works completed during the year, or at present on haml are the pitching and gravelling of the road between Wailnhuna and Tuapeka, which in former winters has become impassable through the former gravelling being quite worked away ; the metalling of the Mam South Hoad as far as Tokomairiro, which during the last two y. inters has been mnch cut up, owing to the supply of metal having been deferred for two or three years after it was required ; the gravelling of portions ol the road along the Shag Valley ; and in addition to them, isolated portions of the main roads, both north and south, have been metalled or gravelled where mod; urgently required.