WAIKARI ROAD BOARD.

Evening Star, Issue 3435, 24 February 1874, Page 2

WAIKARI ROAD BOARD.

To the Editor, Sir,—l admire the manliness, though I cannot commend the prudence, of Mr Dick in voluntarily confirming, in his letter of yesterday, the accuracy of my statement that the roads in the Halfway Bush district “ had sustained considerable injury from the cartage of material used in the construction of the works of the Water Company.” Mr Dick says “ the roads were so bad that they could scarcely be injured, and the Company’s workmen had to cut flax and fill in the ruts in the road (mark the transition from the plural to the singular) before the carts could get along at all.” After some weeks’ carting by the Company, the roads were precisely in this state. f>ot only had the Company’s workmen to fill the ruts in the portion ©f uu formed road referred to by Mr Dick, but the ruts formed and culverts broken in the miles of road traversed by the Company’s carta before reaching the unformed road in question had tp be'tilled in and repaired at a cost to the settlers which has not yet been covered by the rates paid by the Company, ,v so far as I know ” (to adopt a phrase which Mr Dick appears to have learnt by experience ip to be preferred to the “I am quite sure,”

with which he strengthened his statement in the witness box that the Company divided 12 per cent on L 75.000). Mr Dick further states that “ the Company has, at its own expense, constructed a road to the reservoir across the Water of Leith, and entirely unconnected with the Halfway Bush Road Roard.” If the rubble wall erected by the Company to support and protect the main pipes proceeding from the reservoir towards the City is what Mr Dick terms a road, then he knows perfectly well that the portions of the Company’s property, to which access is given by the district roads, are not approachable in this way by drays or bv animals who have not been trained to fly or ascend flights of steps of a somewhat primitive character. As to th*t road across the Water of Leith being unconnected with the Halfway B sh Road Board, seeing that if such a road exists it passes under and not over the water, the members of that body have no desire to be connected with it, tho opinions held by them as to the benefit to be derived from immersion differing in some degree from those held by Mr Dick.—l am, Ac,, , A. H. Ross. Dunedin, February 24.