The Rival Road Boards

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 109, 14 April 1888, Page 2

The Rival Road Boards

Ratepayers in the Manchester Road Board District will remember that at the last tneetmg of the Board a sum of £20 was voted to be expended on the Bunnythorpe-Aorangi road, conditional on a similar sum being expended by the Manawatu Road Board. In another column will be found an account of the manner in which the proposal was treated by the latter Board, when a deputation waited on them for the purpose of urging the necessity for the works contemplated. It will be eeen that while the Board sympathised with the deputation they were — they said — wholly unable to grant their request. We have read the annual balance sheet, as published in the Manawatu Daily Times, and, if one may be permitted to form an opinion as to the financial position of the Board from those figures, the members of the Board could hare done nothing «tae than refuPb the request. Tnej have sot Ui'e xuoaej.

As to the members of the deputation refusing to pay their rates, that was no doubt said in the heat of the moment, as each one must know the rates can be recovered by process of law. This state of affairs, so unpleasant to settlers on the road in question who hare for so many years paid rates for which they have not had the slightest return, will tend to make the ; feeling stronger on their part to detach i themselfes from a Board which has i treated them so scurvily ; but, on the other hand, the ratepayers of the Manchester Road Board, whose con- , sent will hare to be obtained before , the proposed annexation can be made, I will need to be satisfied they are not j to be saddled with liabilities they had , no voice in creating, and from which j the portion to be annexed has not [ received one farthing of benefit. This is a point which will have to be made j

very clear.