A TE KUITI-WAITOMO ROAD.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 491, 14 August 1912, Page 3

A TE KUITI-WAITOMO ROAD.

To the Editor. Sir, —You publish a letter in your issue of the 7th inst., over the name of "Waitcmo." I cannot congratulate the writer upon his knowledge of the fitness of things respecting roads, nor on ilia display of diplomacy. He states that the proposed road between Oparure and Waitomo is a direct road from Te Kuiti to Waitomo. Well, Mr Editor, if you stand facing the west and spread your left hand on a sheet of paper, write Oparure at the end of your thumb, then draw a line round the edge of your fingers and thumb, the line you make will be a fair sketch plan, and will give you a general idea of the directness of that road. As I pointed out in this paper once before, this road has been laid out across the lay of the country and will be a most costly road to make and maintain. And Mr Waitomo has ijiy most sincere sympathy if he he has to depend upon it for an outlet. There was no need to grade a road where ii is, as a splendid and direct road could have been got by leaving the Te Kurni Mairoa road where it crosses the dividing range between the Mangaokewa and Mangapu valleys a direct and easy road can be got from there to Waitomo.

Mr Waitomo, in his comments, admits that the road via Hangatiki is the shorter route of the two, let me add that it will also be a faster road to drive on, being mostly level and comparatively straight; and let me humbly draw attention to the fact that the residents of that place which is

"merely a name," have borrowed the money to metal the road for Hangatiki to Waitomo, and before the coming summer is half SDent a metalled road between these two places will be an accomplished fact. Then the residents of Te Kuiti should bestir themselves and get that three miles of easy read along the Mangaokewa valley from the race course to Hangatiki constructed, then they will have a real good coach road right through from Te Kuiti to the Caves. The statement that all the land through which this three miles of road trave'ses is native l2nd is misleading, sa four Europeans have leased land along this route and would benefit by the road. There is a lot of information I could add, but I am not courting a newspaper controversy under a nom de plume, but I am safe in say\ ing that if Mr Waitomo wants assistance in getting an outlet from his section the Hangatiki settlers will do all in their pov/er to back him up and help him. —I am, etc., KAIRURI. Hangatiki August Bth, 1912.