King Country Roads.

Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 203, 7 April 1905, Page 2

King Country Roads.

A MODERN SOLOMON. (Fbom the Observer ) The charges against certain residents of the King Country, of using bullock drays on the roods of that delectable region in the winter months was finally disposed of by Magistrate Northcroft at the Te Awamutu court a few days ago. The SM. remarked that the law was the law and must be observed, and therefore he convicted the defendants, but he showed that his opinion of the law is a very poor one by discharging the offenders without punishment and declining to certify the costs. There is something in this judgment that assimilates it very closely with those which history assigns to King Solomon. There was, of course, no doubi; that the men who owned and drove the bullock drays used the roads. You cannot work an alibi in respect of a team of bullocks and a dray as easily as you can manipulate the same thing regarding a person. There could therefore be do doubt about the main fact. Indeed, the accused persons admitted the impeachment. Taking into account the condition of the roads is would be admissible to say the “ soft impeachment.” And this reminds as that perhaps the defendants omitted a material point in their case by neglecting to deny that they took their bullocks over any read at alt Not having seen the indictment, we cannot, of course, say whether the reads- were described therein simply as “ roads,” or “ roadways.” or ” surveyed roadlines.” If the term used was ” roads,” the proprietor ot the bullocks might very properly have objected that the meaning attached te it by the Department did not correspond with the de- { finition given in Webster’s Dictionary. I However, they seem to have waived I that point, too, and permitted the whole issue to go before the Court. The S.M. occupied tbe position of King Solomon aforesaid in no merely jocular sdnse. He found himself between a very stupid law and some much to be commiserated culprits, and he gave a judgment which saved the face of one without oppressing the other. The law could not be ignored, but, unlike the King Country bi%d roads, it could be evaded. There wm no reason why it should be made, when applied to those reads, more objectionable than the alleged roads themselves. And so, as already noted, the majesty of the law was appeased by the recording ot a conviction, while justice was palacsted by the remission of fine and costs. What will happen now that the Magistrate, in a manner of speaking, winked bis eye at the offence of carting goods through the King Country in the wet season, it is difficult to imagine. It is amongst the possibilities that settlement will now make progress in that region. For roads of some sort are needful, even if they are bad roads. For something over half-a-oentury the people of the Far North have been crying out in a pitiful voice for' human treatment in the matter of thoroughfares. They have never got it, of course, but. outrageously as they have been used by a long succession ot Governments eager “ to place tho inhabitants on the soil,” they have never yet been subjected to the indignation of being “ warned off” tbs roads, such as they are. It will ba some consolation to the settlers in the King Country to feel that, at any rate, they are not to be put on a lower level than the benighted Far Northerners.