Correspondence

Feilding Star, Volume X, Issue 78, 5 January 1889, Page 3

Correspondence

£\Ye are not responsible for the opinions of our correspondents. J MANCHESTER ROAD DISTRICT, NO. 5 WARD. TO THE KDITOR OF THE STAR. Sir, — At the last meeting of the Manchester Road Board it was proposed to spend £300 on the Feil ding-Bunny thorpe road. For some reason or other, best known to the mover, this resolution was not put. Possibly it would, if carried, have Allowed the public ty i see prematurely through the little gaWe -that was to be played. A more obscure resolution was put and carried^; that the Chairman and Engineer report on the road from Oroua Bridge to Stoney Creek, and make it passable. Thereupon tenders were actually -called for £300 worth of work, to be dealt with on Thursday, the 10th inst. If No. 5 ward can raise £300, why not spend it equally over all the unmade roads ? Why should the Chairman's pet road get it all ? In my interests, as an owner of Feilding property,' I want to see a road made connecting Bunnythorpe and Feilding, but I desire it made under equitable conditions, and with a due regard to the rights of the ratepayers throughout the whole of No. 5 ward. No. 5 ward is already in debt over £100. Its. revenue, without counting Government subsidy, which cannot be depended on, is £266 a year. After paying for maintenance, general expenses, &c., no more than about £100 a year can be saved for .paying oft the debt of £400, which the expenditure of this proposed £300 would bring the wards liability up to. That is to say : no other road 3 could be made for lliree or four years in the ward out of gon-.eral-revenue." This is bad enough for the ratepayers on Taonui, Spur, Furlong.-; roads, and Reid's line, but worse remains behind.- .Once" complete the road uloug the railway line out of the ward's revenue another Road District be it noted) j- and. you may say good-bye to all chances of carrying v loan for the unmade in No. 5 ward. The settlers served l>y the road along the railway lino will, to :say the least,, be very apathetic, and .naturally so, :\vhen a vote is to be taken for. the rest of the roads. Someone has said : " The time for a loan is passed.'.'. Why it should be supposed to have'paased I dou't know. The Act is still in" force under which we can borrow, - and the money is to be had if ihe conditions of the Act are .fulfilled. I warn the settlers, who have not got their .roads made yet, that if this £300 is allowed to be spent, they will be left out in the cold. For four years they can get nothing out of general revenue, and their -chance of a loan is gone. Let them bestir themselves, and see that all the roads are made out of a loan at the same time, and prevent an appropriation of money by an influential few to make roads in another -district, fronting their lands in that district, while the Board's own ratepayers Are neglected. — I am, &c., D. H. Macabthub.