THE KING COUNTRY CHRONICLE. Wednesday, March 30, 1910 OHURA COUNTY ROADS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 246, 30 March 1910, Page 2

THE KING COUNTRY CHRONICLE. Wednesday, March 30, 1910 OHURA COUNTY ROADS.

The serious position in which the settlers in Ohura County will find themselves during the coming winter is directly traceable to the muddled administration of the Public Works Department, and the peculiar reasoning of the Minister in charge. The Ohura County is a new county, where settle-' ment is proceeding as fast as sections are available. Roads of some sort are in existence, but to enable the county to develop hitherto untouched areas, and to put and keep in order such county roaus as it now has, grants from Government are necessary. The Estimates, as the chairman of the Ohura County Council pointed out, bore £26,000 for road purposes in the County Ultimately between £SOOO and £6OOO was voted for road works within Ohura County. It would be very naturally concluded by the average man that when Parliament allots £SOOO for roads in a district, that money would be available as soon as the customary plans and specifications were submitted. The Ohura County engineer prepared a series of plans covering work on a large number of roads. Slips, which in every new mountainous country are of frequent occurrence, were to be cleared, culverts remade, metal laid, the roads graded, and general repair and renewal work was to be undertaken. Now, mark the sequence. These plans were submitted to the Public Works Department for approval, and in practically every case were returned unapproved, on the grounds that, being loan monies, the sums could not be spent in repairs and maintainance. The Minister carefully avoids defining what is the difference between clearing away slips and so making an old road useable, and widening or extending an existing road to make it more useable, and yet, on such faulty reasoning as he exhibits, the settlers over the Ohura are again left lacking of their legitimate and pressing rights to a decent system of county roads. It might be fairly arguable that loan monies should be spent in extensions if the amounts were substantial in themselves and the circumstances only called for the widening of existing roads. But the votes are small in the exireme, and it is difficult to see what value would result if they were spent as the' Minister proposes. A sum of £2O 2s 8d is down for the Prentice road, £l3 3s 3d for Ryan road and £2O 5s Id for Roto road. What can be done with such sums as these, but use them for repairs and renewals? The whole miserable story is one reflecting no credit upon the Public Works Department or its Chief. If the average settler in the Ohura were asked today what he thought of the Department and the responsible Minister his answer would be far from polite. Ohura is heartily sick of the incompetent muddle which has animated road policy during the past twelve months. It is a new county, and a poor county, financially speaking. fts population is sparse, and its rateable value is low. A halfpenny rate brings in only £6OO and subsidies and all yields less than £IOOO. 13 it reasonable, is it just, is it right, that the Ohura County should be burdened with the cost of the upkeep of roads which are not roads until metalled, and' permanently formed? Are the settlers to bear a burden of £7 a ton again if they want supplies during the wet season? And is it to be assumed that, because a grader has cut a hillside clay road through that it is good and permanent for ever? - The Ohura County Council very naturally throws the responsibility for the scandalous muddle that exists upon the Government, and if the memories of the settlers hold good a day of reckoning is promised for those who, in an endeavour to provide attractive balancesheets, make pawns -of the backblock settler whose only chance of getting his produce to market is over such long-promised roads as are now deferred a further period—how long only Providence know?!