ROADING THE OHURA.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 282, 3 August 1910, Page 2

ROADING THE OHURA.

Tlio following interesting article appears in the "Taranaki Ilcraid" : "Tin 1 best, solution o) the Ohura settlors' difficulties is 1o Ik> found in the construction of their roads rather than of tht' railway. For many years wo advocated the metalling of the road to Whaugamomona in pro fere nee to making tiie railway, if both could not he earned out simultaneously, and many settlers who at one time disagreed with us afterwards earne round (o our opinion. The point of our contention has always been that with a good metalled road a railway is not a vital necessity, at any rate until the trcflie becomes so heavy as (o make tin- maintenance of a road too great a tax, while a railway is no great; help unless there are good roads leading to it. We still hold that opinio:), and it applies to the Ohura with as much force as it applied to Whaugamomona. Judging by past experience it will fake fully seven years to make a railway from Ongarue to Mangaroa, and cost at least A',:.!(iO,0()li. Half that sum spent in road making would in less than half the time provide a network of metalled roads ovei tin; greater part of the Ohura district. It would metal the road to Mangaroa, putting that centre in at least as favourable a position as Opunako is to-day. It would bring Matiere. within an easy distance, of the railway, give the 'fatal settlers a good road to their market town, aid provide many miles of metal leading on to the main road down the various valleys. The Public Works lleparfmeiit has only a limited amount of money to spend, and where it; is a question of providing a railway slowly at from .I'tiuOO to .I'SOOO a mile or metalled roads comparatively quickly at a fourth of the cost per mile we vote for the road every time. Six or seven years ago we told the East road settlers the same thing, but they were impatient for the railway and pleaded hardest, for that, with the. result that to-day those in the Whaugamomona Valley are as completely isolated as ever they were, because, though the railway is only about sixteen miles away, they cannot reach it on account, j of the intervening road being' partly j unmetalled and impassable for wheeled j traflic. The same energy put info the : metalling of the road would have reMoved their necessities very much j earlier and almost as effectively. The position is the same in the Ohura district at, the present time. Roads, if metalled right awa>, will servo the s?ttlers very much aoonnr than the raihvcv e.u.