RATANUI.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 348, 29 March 1911, Page 6

RATANUI.

To The Editor. Sir,—There is a place in the back part of this country known to few outside the settlers as Katanui. There is not much to recommend the place except its natural endowments. It is a central place with a township reserve of SO acres, and the Pungarehu and iMaire road junctions abutting thereon. The Mangataki Valley road junctions two miles to the south, and the Pomerangi and Ngapaenga roads two miles to the north. There is not the merest suspicion of road formation connecting this centre, either by the Mairc and Pungarehu roads on the east, or the Mahoenui-Kawhia running through it. Yet this was a township reserve, and the land settled round it before Aria, Kaeaea, Matiere or Mangaroa were thought of, and while the places mentioned have had sections available for building sites years since, no land is available for such a purpose at Ratanui, and progress is being held up and improvements hampered, and are likely to be so till the Commissioner of Crown Lands and other responsible public servants realise the importance of a broad and intelligent knowledge and a similar administration of their respective offices. Eighteen months ago the Commissioner promised to have some sections available within two months—you can understand our indignation in the following reply received last week: "No sections available, when there is a survey party in the locality we may have some cut up." Could anything be more vague or indefinite than this? It seems that a few years of the isolation period of settlers' lives is of little or no consideration to these high authorities who are paid big salaries by the public for exceptional intelligence and wise administration. In connection with obtaining a school the Education Board say we must help ourselves, to this the settlers have cheerfully responded to the extent of subscribing about £BO for a building, although the material on a small waggon can only be carted to within a mile of the place, it having to be packed or carried from there to the township, as all the stuff (grass seed, timber, iron, wire, tucker, etc. —tons and tons of it) has been so done for the last nine years; still this difficulty could be got over, and the erection of the school assured, if only a few square feet of what is practically a wilderness could be made available to us. The children are wilhout necessary education, and the settlers are heart-sick of making fruitless representation to the powers that be, who don't realise the injustice of their neglect, as the only response generally received in reply to I some urgent necessity is, a reply | "that the request has been forwarded on to the proper quarter"—which, judging by results is the waste paper basket. Where is the intelligence of the wise administration Dr Findlay is 1 so often championing? The quite unnecessary delay and the methods of serving this and scores of other districts is due to a great extent to political influence, by a system of allowing the public to write individually for their districts' needs; by so doing they place themselves at the mercy of the'ruling power and create a system that lends it3elf to abuse at the expense nf their neighbours. It is said I that "it is a long lane that has no I turning " There are many back- ! block lanes that have no beginning— I and the settlers are beginning to dej spair of ever seeing the first turning. I There is nothing more futile than the settlers' anxious appeals for fair ! consideration in the matter of road i construction. They are not a class of i the community that want much, they i only raise their voice in cases of j dire necessity (that they have to do I so, time and again on every occasion is'not their fault—it is their misfortune, as o;i appearances it looks as if they are asking for ten times more than they are getting). When we come to look at the system of road construction in the King Country there in not a single feature of it to be commended, though a great deal to be condemned; it is under no particular authority, therefore there is nobody to blame for promises unfulfilled and grants not spent and other shortcoming of a bad system. Those who have control study, not so much the efficiency of the department as the political" use that can be made out of • it. In such a large affair involving a j large expenditure (at least in appearances, judging by the recorded estimates published;, ope'naturally looks for a competent engineer, a map of, authority, hut excepting Mr Murray of New Plymouth, there is none. The authorities that are, are behind the scene and only those who know how to pull the wires can get in touch with them. There are many ovcreers, but it does not seem to be part of thenduty to report the needs of their various districts, and though some are I jjojnstaking. impartial men, it is a woM known fact that others are political tout*. I doubt if there is a more politically abused department in the whole of the Civil Service than the Roads Department. Why should there be any necessity for the settlers to appeal, beg, pray and wait indefi- ' lately for every mile of road construe- ' tioii?" Why is not the work adminis- ! tered by a competent, impartial au- ' th'jriiyVbo does n.gt want to be told I »,i:J business by every other settler on tne land? Why: In the case this system, of encouraging settler;; to write appeal;? has a strong political significance, and in professional politicians' hands is converted to a means i of evading the obligation and throw • | jug the biarne on the settlers themse'fves. In the second case it is obvious that such an authority would be a block in the way of politically manoeuvred grants. A good instance

of what might be done in this country of rapid settlement, by 'a periodical visit of inspection of the back-blocks necessities by the heads of departments is given in the recent visit of the Chairman of the Board of Education. As a rule the heads of the Road 3 Department, even when travelling, avoid those places that need their attention most, and the opportunities lost for bringing relief are known only to the unfortunate sufferer. Some parts of the back-blocks have never seen a more responsible officer than the overseer, and when a fleeting visit is paid to a district the authorities mostly look for what need not be done. I think the proprietors of the papers the settlers subscribe to, instead of tilling their columns with copied foreign matter, would do well to make themselves familiar with the needs of the remotest and most humble of cases, and keep up a vigorous agitation of the "cause that lacks assistance," etc. Lately wc have seen in print Sir Joseph Ward's repeated allusion to this country's prosperity. He seems very anxious to tell us we are so! As though we didn't know it! It is not so very long ago that Sir Joseph Ward told a deputation from here that he simply could not find the money—a matter of a few hundred pounds—for a back-block necessity; yet probably we had hardly left the chamber when he signed away thousands for some Imperialistic dream. Such treatment rubs a lot of the enthusiasm off one's Imperialism. In connection with the five million loan, we are told that settling and roading the back-blocks is one of the necessities of it. Just before last election we were informed that one million was earmarked to be spent at the rate of £250,000 ner annum on road formation, and they would have us believe that they have spent it. How long the people will tolerate these paltry excuses, which are insults to ordinary intelligence, is their own affair, but they cannot expect anything better, the Government is only as good as they make it—it is politically themselves—the best and severest criticism, and plenty of it, is the only means of improving our condition. So long as we will not call a spade a spade, so long will the Government continue to call a road a road, when it is only a bad track.—l am, etc., V. L. JACKSON. Ratanui 26tTi March, 1911. (We give Mr Jackson's long letter in full. As he well knows we are always ready to publish the grievances of back-block settlers, if they will take the trouble to write. His allusions as to how newspapers should be run have been rioted. —Ed. K.C.C.)