WANTED: ROADS

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 194, 27 September 1909, Page 2

WANTED: ROADS

To the Editor. Sir, —I have scanned your correspondence columns for several weeks in the hope that I should find that some on? j with public spirit and power of initia- j tive prepared to champion the cause of j the back block pioneer in his hopeless I and heartbreaking struggle for existence, patiently enduring his life of isolation and imprisonment in the lonely recesses of the bush; cut off from his fellows, and the comforts of civilisation by lons mile* of impassable mud, generally known as "Roads" and would be found using those columns to ventilate our grievances and voice our wants. So far. however, your columns are apparently wholly monopolised by that mystic and unknown critic: "W. 8." wasting valuable space and costly ink with such dry as dust subjects as No-license, about which we all know nothing and care less, and about which no one troubles to read. Even the Te Kuiti Chamber of Commerce which might be looked to for a lead seems to have gone to sleep, or has given up the struggle as hopeless. ' Yet surely, if ever there was a time when united and determined action was called for in the interests of the settlers, and the general progress of the district that time is the present. "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, and it's the last straw that breaks the camel's back." So it is with the bush farmer. He will struggle hopefully and manfully for years, hoping against hope, but unless the first essential to his success: "Passable roads," are provided for him within a reasonable time, he must go to the wall, and this, it is to be feared, will be the fate of many of us unless something is done at once. Twelve months ago we were in high hopes of seeing substantial progress made with the metalling of the more important reads in the distirct. Liberal grants appeared on the Estimates; three stone crushing plants were imported; public offices had just been erected; a competent staff of road officials and workmen were in the service of the Government; tenders were being called for miles of metalling; and the hearts of the settlers were cheered with high hopes of at last seeing substantial progress made. But: "Alas"! "Alas"! what a change has come over the scene? Today the Roads Department is nonexistent; the fine new offices are shut up, to be henceforth a home for the owls, and road work of all descriptions is stopped. Timber fo~ culverts and bridges ordered twelve months ago U lying rotting by the roadside; the expensive plants imported a year ago are scattered all over the district idle and neglected, and general chaos reigns supreme, while high hopes once cherished by the settlers, have sunk below zero. Our onetime energetic M.P. seems to have deserted us, and now contents himself with a rush round the chief centres served by the railway. The only hope therefore, is for the settlers to take a lesson in self help. Let meetings be held say at Aria, Paemako, Piopio, Mairoa, Mahoenui and Te Kuiti, and other centres in the Ohura, and make a determined effort to place the matter before the Government with no un certain sound. Make it known that we demand a reasonable measure of justice ; that we can no longer be deceived by promises prior to election day only to be left wallowing in the mud for another three years. Fellow settlers: "Time is the essence of contract." Let us up and help ourselves; let some one in the different counties call meetings at once. "God helps those who help themselves." —I am, etc., A GENUINE BACKBLOCKER.