Kiritehere Roads.

Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 328, 6 September 1907, Page 2

Kiritehere Roads.

BL.YCKBLOCKS HARDSHIPS. [Auckland Star, Monday, August 80] A communicit ion from a King Coan try settler, Mr R Gregg, of Kiritehere on the Wes’ Gast, occupies two colamus in the Wellington evening newspaper, and gives a remarkable account of backblocke conditions io winter. Mr Gregg stoles that the eetilemcnt in which lie lives is known as the Marokopa-Kiritehere, and com prises some 14,000 acres, lying on lhe south side of the Mmokopß River, and along the sea, and extending ea t *nrd a distance of about five mile*, or aboa* 25 iquare. miles of territory. “Oar bise of supplies,” be says, is the Mraokopa River, where at present there is a large H ixmill in cjuoculi in with a sawmill, three stores, and two b*ard iug houses, with two boats trading on the river. Our natural inlet and outlet fursfock is via Te Kuiti to the Waikato. Roadwork was started hor*» two years ugo but where ? One wou'd naturally suppose at tbe river ; bn* - £>•« our district ecgiecer seems d bya desire to start all road formation at or as mat the centre of tho hl ck as possible- In our case he st-ir*ed work in the Kiritehere Valley, ihr-e rnihs from tbe Min k ipa, f.ircng u to use thu coast tr.ck, which is very r««n fh witb sharp, j«gg‘d r<»<-k< and very steep and dang< coin cl-fft tn gt" up and down, and on>y f«»? , about i wo hours e;>ch day at low wa». r Out t.f a vo' > of i>JOO f -r ih. K ’ it. - here Vulhy I t*'t bUßriun, and which wp 1 have been t dd is all we have > trot two chains of f rm d fit’, track Just think of i' I -a-j chains of a G > tr ek for £3OO I may say (hut «<v r two of the r /ad has been e'earvd but it ie. all, or n arly al', under water until it L dr uu«-d ”

Continuing, Mr Gregg says:—‘To show you the hardships we have to pat up with, I may mention that there are three families living on the Kiritehere ruad , a distance of about three miles from each other. They have been in here over three years. Would you believe it possible that those three women have only been able to meet once in all that time owing to the state of the trecks ? I can point you one of them who gave birth to the first white child born in the Settlement a year ago last April, 80 miles from a doctor by a nearly impassable track, and who bad to depend altogether on her husband r or assistance, none of her neighbours being able to came and eee or help her. I can point you ibe same woman last April suffering the pangs of her first here ivernent, having bad her little girl drowned io the creek and none of her neighbours able to get to. I can point you the procession of stalwart men in their flannels and dungarees with the little coffin in a sack, slung on a pole and borne on two mens shoulders, winding down a track through the dense bash in slush up to their knees—over them in places —to inter the body in a cemetery reserve six miles away. Do you wonder at women going mad living such a life, do you wonder at even strong men giving way to despair when they raalice that after years of struggle and hardships, instead of things getting better, they are actually getting worse ?’’

The writer asks that an officer of the Roads Department should be sent to his district to report on the situation. He concludes: “I declare to yon—and I know of what I speak—that tbe bulk of the settlers in the King Country live ia habitations and subsist on food that a progressive farmer in a civilised community would not consider good enough for his pigs or his poultry, and yet we are compelled to pay for all the things other people get as a right, poet and telegraph, schools, etc. I maintain that tbe settler in New Zealand, and especially in the King Country, is treated more“cruelly and more inhumanly than in any other country on the face of tbe earth.” Mr Greenslade, member for the district, has received a petition from Mr Gregg and others on the subject referred to in the letter, and has forwarded it to the Minister for Public Works to have full inquiry made into it.