LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXII, Issue 4334, 26 October 1921, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Applications are called tor the position of secretary of the Hauraki Plains A. and P. Association.

An insurance agent for this district is advertised for by the Hartford Fir.e Insurance Co.

Tenders are called by the Hauraki Plains County Council for road works on the Tahuna-Patetonga road.

The very good offer made by Mr W. Marshall to supervise the erection of the Paeroa District War Memorial, which, was gratefully accepted by the committee, will ensure a good honest job being done without unnecessary expense.

The Hauraki Plains County Council has decided to re-submit a 'loan proposal .to the ratepayers for quarries, machinery, county chambers, etc., of approximately 1.30,000. There are 12 butter factories, 18 cheese factories, and 30 creameries and casein factories, three glaxo factories, and t,wo dried milk factories being operated by the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Co., Ltd., in the Waikato and Thames Valley. The rec,ent heavy rains have inundated portions of the Hauraki Plains around Patetonga. Luckily, the crown of -the. road- is above water in most places, but the cattle were having a bad time.

A start is to be made this week with the erection of a new school at Tirohia. The carpenters are already assembling material, and the building should be available for use wi,thin a month. When the school was applied for about eighteen months ago the settlers assured the Education Board that there” were about forty children of school age within the proposed boundaries of the school districts.

“Money is no good on the Hauraki Plains unless there are good roads at least, that is the conclusion I have come to,” said Cr. T. McLaughlin at a special meeting of the Hauraki Plains County Council held at Ngatea on Monday. “And the Plains are no good without good roads,” chimed in another mud-bespattered councillor.

A protest against the action of the Public Works Department in spending large sums op drainage and reclamation work on the Waihou and Ohinemuri rivers was voiced at the last meeting of the Pfako County Council. The chairman, Cr. F. W. Walters, said the Department originally estimtaed the cost of the proposed work to be £150,000. The Department had actually spent over £200,000. and estimated the total cost t,o ;be £625,000. “Why,” said Cr, Walters, “the land is not worth it!” He said it was unfaii- that the Department should expect local bodies to contribute to these large sums without giving them an opportunity of saying whether they wanted the work or not. The Piako"County was not benefiting from the work, and he did not think Piako should be compelled to pay. Cr. Waiters added that the work was being suspended pending the publication of the River Commission’s report.

An ex-Taranaki resident on the Hauraki Plains, commenting on the hostility of some farmers to tar-seal-ed roads, on account of the cost,, said he would willingly pay double the cost in order to get good roads. He would save the money over and over again in wear and tear. The expense of running a car, for instance, in Taranaki, was only, a fraction of what it. cost to run one on the Plains—there was also a vast /Z difference in the quality of the roads! In Taranaki the toll-gates helped a great deal towards the cost of upkeep, the outsider paying as well as the local man; and the charge was not as heavy as it was for using the ferry services over the Waihou River, A ticket was. given to the car driver when he passed a toll-gate, and this ticket served him for the day at that gate, which he could pass through as many times as he liked, on the same day, without extra charge. On the other hand, a person had to pay “a fresh toll every time he crossed a ferry, whether on the same day or not. There was no sort of argument in favour of bad roads, and there was no sound argument against good roads, either on the score of cost or for any other reason. Good roads were advantageous in so many ways, directly and indirectly, that once they were in existence on the Plains the settlers would realise that it was costly stupidity to be wi.thout them.