ROADS FOR THE BACK-BLOCKS.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 209, 20 September 1937, Page 4

ROADS FOR THE BACK-BLOCKS.

Wliatever may be thouglit and said with regard to other avenues of expenditure of the people' s money which our Government has found and is still seeking,, there will be very general approval of the Prime Minister' s promise that decent access roading for back-block settlers will not be overlooked. That there is very great need for improvement in this respeet can be appreciated only by those who have had occasion to traverse in wintertime the apology for xoads with which a vpry large proportion of these settlers have to put up. As Mr Savage says this is a matter into which party politics should not be allowed to enter and.in which the Gi|vernment is fully justified in expecting the cordial and practical co-operation of the County Councils concerned. The men, with their women-folk, who have undertaken the task of breaking-in new country and making it productive are the only ones who can really be called settlers in the origjinal and true acceptation of the term. To apply it to those who are planted on land ready-made to their hands is au obvious misuse of words, no matter how customary it may have become. They are, in truth} the only ones who are in any way comparable with the strudy and self-reliant pioneers who undertook like tasks in 4>he early days to transform this little country into one of the most productive on the face of the earth and to whose memories to little gratitude is either shown or felt. Tliere are thus none more deserving than they to receive some substantial share of the present Government' s so liberal largessc.