THE ROADS MEETING.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 226, 19 January 1910, Page 5

THE ROADS MEETING.

By W.B. The meeting convened to consider what action to take in reply to "t'he latest exhibition, of our Dominion's. Rpad and Bridges Department's incompetence, may he considered illuminating, not in what it said, but what it led up to, aha left blank: ' Its tone was of thatgrim stertorous silence the wrestling athlete prepares his tendons with, to receive his opponent's hip-grip; of a determination no longer to accept proffer for performance; of the ominous calm which-precedes the tempest. The pioneer settler has begun to inwardly 'digest that election after election , the same aged refurbished toy is dangled by the aged political, string to hypnotise his bewildered perception. He sees the same march past of sandwich men whose front board reads: "£250,000 for- roads and bridges the coming year,"- but when the procession is past, the rear board reads "Taihoa," and the weary pioneer spectator runs to the occulist to examine his eyes, or asks of the bytsander whether he also has read the two legends; or was it an optical illusion? The tone of the meeting emphatically declared it would stand closer the next time to makj sure that both boards read alike, or it would capsize the troop in the gutter. It wouid be well for those inclined to repeat the deception to take heed when the next carnival is designed, lest' the inspection 'be so merciless that it refuse to let it pass, and desire it to remember that its previous fooleries have left so indelible an impression that it recognises the ruse too familiarly to be duped on the present occasion. It would be well that those who desire to shape a young nation's destinies per medium of a free democracy that the first item of its creed must be political honesty. Thus it has been from the days "of Cato the Roman, all down the years, and those who misread the omen went under. The ox-patient pioneer is ready to bear privation and hardship, but he hates to, but may be, fooled once too often.