THE ROADING QUESTION.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 488, 3 August 1912, Page 5

THE ROADING QUESTION.

To the Editor, Sir, —The question of roads is never absent from the minds of the people of this district, and your readers must be sick to death of hearing and reading of the conditions and hardships that exist for the unfortunate settler by the neglect to metal formed roads, but some are actually worse oft than those unfortunates, in that they have no road access of any sort. Imagine the lot of the settler who takes up a section with no access except a rough track. He is unable to crop, and every townsman and much more, farmer, realises the value of winter feed, because it is impossible to get implements on to his farm. Grass seed, wool, timber, and even food stuffs, are almost impossible to transport. He spends a lot of valuable time, and is put to unnecessary expense in keeping the track passable. As a case in point, take the country lying between Oparure nnd Waitomo. There are a lot of settlers in there, and though there is a surveyed road running through several Crown sections, nothing whatever has been done, although it has been surveyed for many years, and settlers about that road, as well as those past Waitomo, who would benefit equally, have been agitating for a long time. Only recently ona settler there, after living for nearly eighteen months in a tent, decided to build a whare, and the material necessary took fourteen bullocks four days to drag up on a sledge from Oparure to the site, a matter of about two miles, although the building was only 10 by 14. This, I wculd remind you, is only about six miles outside Te Ivuiti. This particular road, I think should be the first in the district to receive attention, a3 one of the closest settled districts would be connected with Te Kuiti, bringing them at least five miles nearer sale yards, a great consideration for stock. In addition, it will open up a gap in the main road between Te Kuiti and Marokopa. A petition to the Minister of Public Works is now being signed which will go to show the feeling of the people most affected. —I am, etc., SETTLER.