RUAKITURI VALLEY

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2103, 11 June 1907, Page 4

RUAKITURI VALLEY

MEANS OF ACCESS. DIFFERENT ROADS COMPARED. The following lotter from a correspondent at Runkituri should bo of interest: — In a rccont issue of your paper, your 'l'iniroto correspondent liad, I boliovo, tlio following note: “It is roported tlio Bushy Knoll road is at present blocked with slips. As this is a vory important (and tlio futuro dray road to Waikurcmoana) road, : t should liavo tlio attention of tlio Department to soo that a man is kept on to keep all clear.”

I do not know if your correspondent has official knowledge regarding tlio futuro dray road to WaikaromonJna. If ho lias, and what ho states is correct, truly the way of tlio Government or its servants is opon to criticism. Ido not think your correspondent "Can know much about tlio country around hero, so as a sottlor on country to which tlio Bushy Knoll road leads, I skall bo glad if you will allow mo to make a fow remarks concerning tlio moans of access. Taking tlio Bushy Knoll road firstly as a conch and tourist route: After leaving Tiniroto, you havo about fivo miles of a dray road; then nftor crossing the river whore tlio bridgo is now being erected you strike tlio Bushy Knoll road. You havo now twolvo miles (moro or loss of uphill) to got over, or moro correctly speaking around the southern sido of Bushy Knoll. You havo to attain a height of about 2000 foot and travel for miles along a bleak mountain sido exposed to tlio full forco of tho southern breezes. After striking tlio Gisborno-Waikaremoana road 12! miles from tho river, you havo six miles down hill to the crossing of tlio Runkituri—a total of 231 miles from Tiniroto. Taltng it secondly ns a road beneficial to settlors, tlioro are four sections adjoining tho Bushy Knoll road, the occupiers of which (Mr. Kent excepted) would have to work tho produco of their places uphill to tho highest point of tlieir holdings to attain a road. Strange to say, nono of the three get their storos in that way or wool out. Their wool is packed down and tlioir stores up the Runkituri Valley rjoad, tjlie advantages and stato of which road I will now describe. Taking the Runkituri Valley road, and placing it firstly as a coach and tourist route against the other, aftei* leaving Tiniroto you havo seven miles to the celebrated To Reinga falls, crossing which you enter tho Runkituri Valley. There is now about four miles of a dray road formed up the valloy, making a total of eleven already formed. Seven milos from tlio end of the present formed dray road you cross the river at Mr. Bootliman’s, and eight miles further on you strike tlio Gisborne-Waikaremoana road at the Runkituri crossing, having followed the river all the way through pretty and in parts most picturesque sconery, and not having at any part attained a greater altitude than tho starting point—-Tiniroto. About onothird of the present bridle-track is practically flat, with sottlers’ homesteads about very two miles along the route. The total distance from Tiniroto to Mr. Dickeusen’s, at the junction of the Gisborne-Waikaremoana and Runkituri Valley road is 26 miles, 11 of which are already formed and 15 miles of a bridle track (through numerous flats) easily made into a dray road, against 23! miles, of which five is a formed road and 18! bridle track. What tourist, 1 ask, would allow tho extra three miles to deter him from seeing the Te Reinga falls and the better sconery and enjoy the greater comfort in travelling ?

In comparing tho two roads as regards being beneficial to settlers, the advantages of the Ruakituri Valley road are still moro apparent. This road at present is tho only means of access to ten sottlers, and is also used by three out of tlio four whoso land adjoins tho Bushy Knoll road. It is the easiest means of access to the southern portion of the Tahora block where bushfelling operations have commenced, and it will facilitate the working and enhance tho value of tho block of 16,000 acres which the Government is now surveying and will shortly open for selection. Tho late Mr. Harding, after traversing tho different roads with tho view to commencing the working of the Papuni block, declared it was tlio best and in fact tho road for the district.

To show your readers liow this road is neglected, I would point out that the settlors on the AVairoa sido of the Ituakituri were the means of getting the bridges, etc., at To lteinga. In fact, their thirds and fourths paid tlio most of the cost of erection (albfout £820). There is now a contract being completed under the supervision of the AVairoa County Council’s engineer for £520 to bo paid for from the same source. Every settler is ready and willing to rate himself to get a road. AA’hile a bridge is being put up over the Hangaroa river for the benefit of ono or two settlers by the Government, the Ituakituri settlors were told when they applied for a similar structure that they must provide seventeen thousand feet of sawn timber as their share, and have now to do without even a cable. On one occasion a settler had to erect a wire _ over the river and put his hoggets over two at a time, and on another occasion a mob of hoggets had to be carried over on horseback. The road between Mr. Mills’ and Mr Dickenson’s which is being used at present by five settlors for packing stores, etc., to bushmen, is in~a very bad state owing to the heavy rains and slips, yet the Government man lias received instructions to leave this road (the only means that tlio setters have of supplying their bushmen) and work on the Gisborne-AVaikaremoana road, over which I scarcely think ten white men excepting Government employees pass in a year. Trusting you will excuso the length of my letter, in which I have endeavored to show your readers the relative positions of our roads and to point out to them that if any among thorn should contemplate applying lor a section up tlio Ituakituri river, the making of tlio Ituakituri A r alley road into a dray road is the nearest, cheapest, and best way of gaining access to their sections.

IS MARRIAGE A FAILURE? “EA’E DID IT.” CAUSE OE THE FAILURE. “Only a AVoman” wipes the floor with “Married Man,” and offers some remarks on the question generally as follows: ■ I was not surprised to sec ill your paper of tlio oth iust., oil the question, “Is Marriage a Failure?” such childish ‘twaddle,” considering that it emanated from a man. I would give one of my fellow-women credit for more sensible reasoning. Your correspondent says that he sometimes has to get up in the night to get the baby a drink. AVlio does he suppose should get lip to get the baby a drink? His wife, I suppose. And then, again, it amuses me, immensely to hear him say that he cannot go to Church on Sunday—his wife won’t let him. Poor, ill-used fellow! I suppose he uses tins as a grand excuse to give the parson when he calls during the week to see why he was not at -Church on Sunday. The same old story, “Please, Eve did it!” Your correspondent also says that liis wife keeps a servant whom lie must not speak to. Poor man! I suppose that ho is equally, afraid to

speak to bis typist, or oven to the girl at. the other end ol the telephone. What a piteous appeal for sympathy his letter is! ;Ho ought nover to havo boon a man. Ho ought to havo boon a mirsogirl. One of your lady correspondents suggests that your first two men correspondents oil this subject, ought to be in gaol. Your correspondent of yesterday ought never to have left the nursery and his mother’s protection.

If there is any risk attached to marriage, who accepts tho risk? A woman is compelled to stay at homo and look alter the houso and her children, and therefore must' nocossa lily bo moro dependent. A Man—not ono of your masculino correspondents—but a Man—can always shift for himself. His occupation calls him out all day, and ho can bo out nearly all night too. A woman must bo at homo with hor children. She cannot go out to the club, to tho lodge, or even bo always standing on the street corner.

And then, sir, before marriage a man has greater opportunities of finding out what the woman ho intends to marry is. She is always at home —always in tho same place. Tho man is all over tho country. I think, sir, that wo women accept by far the greater part of tho risks of marriage. Marriage is not a failure, sir. When marriage appears a failure it is the people who marry that are the failures. Marriage is not a failure, or life, the world, soon wordd bo a fail-

May 1 ntfk, sir, if any of your masculine correspondents’ mental ability is capablo of giving us any logical reasoning in support of their contentions.

“OUT OF ’THE MOUTHS OF

BABES.”

AN AUTHORITATIVE STATEMENT

A unique personage—a gentleman who has “braved the battle and the breeze” for botwcon twelve and fifteen years and is not yet married — puts tho whole matter in a. nutshell, as follows: —

Having road and followed up all letters re “Is marriage a failure?” 1 (a juvenile) wish to express my candid opinion on them. Although I am not a married man [ firmly believe that marriage is not a failure, and whoever the persons may be who are corresponding through your paper, they must be extremely selfish or inconsiderate of their fellow creatures’ feelings.