King Country Roads.

Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 333, 11 October 1907, Page 2

King Country Roads.

Advantages (?) of Living in K the Back-Blocks.

IS DESCRIBED BY MB GREGG, OF KIRITEHERE.

8 line tew we?ks ng> w* published extracts from n letter written to the Wellington Po-rt by M*' R Gregg, a Kiritehere settier. The iiiiereat which baa ben aroused thereby has been widespread, co iseq icmly w-> have decided topublisb the letter ;’n e-ctenso The article wis headed “In the King Country “How Road* Are Not Made”; Hardships cf Settler?,” and was as follaws : Sir, —I know that your columns are ever open to the cry of the oppre3-ed,and, there* i'o*e with your kind permission, I would 1 ke to lay before yonr numerous readers a short statement of how bridle tracks are canstr acted here. This settlement is known as the Marokopa- Kiritehere, and comprises some 11,000 acres lying on the south side of the Maro kjpa l.'ivsr and along the sea, and extending eastward a distance of about five miles nr about twenty-five square miks territory. Our base of supplies is the Marokopa River, where at present there are a lane flaxmill iu connection with a sawmill, three stores snd two boardinghouses, with two b<a?B trading into the river. Our n tural inlet smd outlet for stock is via Te Kuiti to the Wkato.

The selt’emint has been opens 1 threi years, but don’t think that we haye had these conveniences juststato.l :Ji that time ; for them we are indebted to Captain Williamson, of tfaibara, who made the first trip iu here one year ego, For tho two yeais previous it cost us £1 per horse-load of 1501 b to have our stores brought here from Kawhia. In other words, 501 b of flour purchased in Kawhia for 6s cost 6s 8d to pack a distance of about twenty miles. BTABTIWG OF BOAD WOBK. Road work was started here two yeas ago, but where P One would naturally sappose at tho river; bnt no J—cur Dis'.riot Engineer seems possessed by a desire to starting all road formation at or as near the centre of the block as possible. In our case he started work in the Kiritehere Valley, three Dries from the Marokopa, forcing us to use the coast track, which is very rough, with sharp jagged rocks and very steep and dangerous cliffs to get up and down, and only passable for two hours each day at low

Well, a track was constructed up the Kiritehere Valley road (which in connection with the Maungakokopu road is the main road through to the railway) a distance of two and a half miles; then there was a mile or so of boggy swamp that was left un _ touched; then three quarters of a mile was cleared, but no drains or culverts were put in ; then another small gap where a bridge was required ; then about a quarter mile was cleared and formed. Then comes another gap of about- a mile or oyer. The clearing of this was let about a year ago but when the contractors had been at work about a month they were turned off at a momenta notice, ami nothing more has been dene since. Instead of doing any good to us. they only blocked up our track by falling trees across it, which we had to remove bo get up and down. Then about a mile and a-half has been cleared and formed on the Mangakokonuroad, and about half a mile cleared, leaving about two and a half miles of that road to be formed and cleared. ENGINEEBING EXTBAOBDINABY.

«rr -.7 We will now go back to the Waipa-road —that is, the road that connects the Maro*s** F l * h 6he Kirifcehe re, the road which should have been constructed first of all. Well, sir, 1 am sure that you will hardly believe me when I tell yoa that the engineeir commenced ite construction from the Kiritehere end instead of the Marokopa. He had two alternatives— to start the work ait were right at his feet—l mean at the stores and landing-place-—or to take his mon, tbeir tools and supplies, around the beach described before, and another mile up the Kiritehere Valley, and make a start there and work towards the point left four miles back. He chose the latter. About one and a half miles of that road has been c obstructed, but no one baa seen it or is likely to see it until it is finished. There is a gang at work on it now, and they have got. to pack everything they require a distan.ee of six miles on a dangerous trade • whereas if the road had been started from the right end they would only have one mile to go. There are two other roads in the block, the Kairimu and Whakahan These are the roads that the engineer seems to tie determined to push on at present though they will benefit no one now and notilie wants th am.

SUPPLIES COMPLETELY BLOCKED. Now, sir I hope yon understand our position clearly, On the one hand we are completely blocked from our supplies—l mean stores, fencing-wire, and everything necessary to our living and improving the land • on t he other hand we are denied any facility for getting stock m and out to our land to eat ottr grass and enable u 3 to live and pay our way. Is that the way to treat a community of settlers ? If we were a community of lepers we could not be more effectually isolated, We charge the department either with incompetence, as no practical man would go and do the work as 1 have described; or whuit is far worse, with a desire to harass and oppress the settlors—to make them feel that they are slaves indeed. That I believe is nearer the truth, as to all o ur petitions and requests the department officials have turned a deaf oar, aud not only that, but they have always gone and done the-thing than- we were against doing, jost to shew us how they resented our interference and our asking for any measure of justice, THU* HUMDBBD POUNDII J> O « A TWO-

Siir, I declare to you ani tho country at large that instead of being any better off for the thousands of pounds spent on the block we are actually worse. Our tracks have never been so bad as they are this winter When we came iu here threj years ago we had to clear i,racks aud bridge little streams to enable us to get to our sections Th ■» tracks hare got very boggy now, aud the bridges danger >us, but they arc the only ones we hare for a distan3e of pjx tin the Kiritehere Valley. The only Govern? meat, work we can use is two miles on that rood. And 1 am going co make another statement which you will think incredible but is a fact nevertheless. Out of a vote of £BOO for the Kiritehere Valley last sassion and which wc have been t<?ld is ail spent, w j have got the use of two chains formed «ft. track. Just think of it-—two chains of a Oft. track for £3OOl I may say that over two miles of the road has been cleared, but it is all, or nearly all, under water until it is drained.

HEABTREKDISTG INCIDENTS. To show you the hardships we have got co pat ap with, I may mention that there are three families living o n the Kiritehererosa distance of about three miles from each other; they have been in here over three veare, Would you believe it possible that those three women have only been able to meet onoo in all that time, owing to the state of the tracks 1 I can point you one of thorn who gave birth to the first white child

born In tho saUlament a you ago Inst April thirty miles from a doctor by a, newly ImiMiabla track, who had to depend altogether on her hnsband for hsristanoe, none of her women neighbours being able to oome and see or help her I can point you the same woman last April angering the pang, of her brat bereavement, buying bad her little girl drowned In the creek, and none of her neighbours able to get to bar. f can point yon the procession of stalwart men in their flannels and dungarees, with (he little coffin In a sack, slung on s pole , nd home on two man’s shoulders, winding d o wn a track through the dense bush in a’usb up to their knees—and over them in placesto inter the body in a cometary reserve six miica away.

i T®“ d , er »t womb going mad Hri g such a life ? Doyon wonder at even strong men gwing „,y to despai.,- when they realise that after years of straggle and ba dslnpa, instead of things getting better they are actually getting worea ? ‘ . A CISA Pon ESQUIBY. 11 '»‘ht »’>ora all things is a little light and publicity let in upon the system or roadmaking pursued by our District bngiuoer and which I hare very weakly frnm U ?a° J w Wo w3 nt an officer from the n ollington district or Hawkes B .y to be sent np here to examine and report on the same. I trust yon will try and hlpne- We have stood it too lon/; we should have objected to it at first but we di I not realise what it meant than. One Uung I should mention: The track isso bad now over the Kiritehere hill that the sot .leva have to swag their stores around t-.o rocks at low water, get tbs empty horses over the hill a, best they can, and re loid, Ihe last time I came over the truck my hor«e fell twice, and I got pitched off on both ,one plac9 jaat oo the «dga of the cliff-. That is the track we ha<e had to use for the past three years, and are likely to use for three more, nnleas we are able to effect a change. Sir, it would take up too much of your spsca to touch on the difficulties and expense we are put to to get stock into our sections It is altogether impossible to g-t them out again.

thb postal service. I have just a word to siy sbmtour po B ‘al s<?rvic9. We have had a fortnightly mail for the past year. We tried hard lust year , to get a weekly one. bat Sir Joseph Ward said it could not ba done—it would not pay 1 think, air, we have a population of bet ween 150 and 200 souls to be served by this mail, two fiaxmills, one sawmill and about 40 settlers and their families, with a largo fioating population incidental to mills, road and bush work. Well, a month ago the Auckland P.-stmaater offered the munificent sum of £3O to the man who carried the mail for 52 tripa to and fromTe Maika, a distance of atout 21 or 22 miles. It is not the distance, it is the track such as I have attempted to describe at this end, and the tide-waiting that make the work difficult. If he did not take that the office would be abolished at once. (There is n-j despotism in this happy country I) Well, the man asked ue to meet and consult on what was to be done. He offered to do the work for a year for £so—a very reasonable amount—so we subscribed the sum, and we have our weekly service from the first of this month. The trip occupies two long days from daylight to dark, and in the winter it is sometimes impossible to do it in two, and drive a pack-horse. Just think of

our Most Liberal Government offering Us 6d remuneration far a man, two hors is and harness for two days* hard work—and dangercus at that—birely enough to pay for his accommodation on the way 1 And then read Sir Joseph Ward’s remarks in the Budget re chet.p postage to the country—compare the fact with the theory. The country people lose all the time. I think, sir, it is time enough to cheapen post, telegraph and railway when every soul in the country can have access to them. We are ale j compelled to build our own school house or go withouk. Is it fair I ask you, sir, that those things should be so I I declare to you—and 1 know of what I speak—that the bulk of the settlers in the King Country live in habitations and subsist on food that a progressive farmer in a civilised community would not consider good enough for his pig® or his poultry. And yet we are compelled to pay for all the things other people get as a right— post, telegraph, schools, etc, Sir, I maintain that the settler in New Zealand, and especially in the King Country, is treated more cruelly and more inhumanely than in any other country on the face of the earth* lam not used to writing for the public, bo I hope you will pardon any deficiencies ; I can guarantee the truth of my statements at any rate.—Yours, etc., E. GEEGG. Kiritehere, 7th August, 1907,

[The above letter was referred to the Act ing-Minister for Public Works (Hon. Jas. M'Gowan), so as to give him the opportunity of making an answer to our correspondent’s charge if he thought fit to do so. The Min* istei, however, after consideration, decided that it would be inadvisable for him to enter into discussion on the subject in the nowspape.r]

Mr Greemlade, member for th district, received a petition from Mr Gregg and others on the subject referred to in the above letter, and forwarded it to the Minister, who promised to have full enquiry made into it,

In e leading article in the same issue, headed “ Heart Breaking Hirdships,” the Post says

"If we were a community of lepers,” writes Mr R. Gregg to us from Kiritehere in a letter which is published to-day, “we could not be mure effectually isolated.” We commend to the earnest consideration of the public his circumstantial account of the sufferings of himself and his fellow-eettlers in the block of land near the mouth of the Marokopa River, in the King Country, which was opened up three years ago under the name of the Marokopa-Kiritehere settlement. • For the first two years the settlers had to look te Kawhia for the r supplies, paying no less than £1 per horse load of 1501 b. by way of freight. <• In other words, 501 b. of flour purchased in Kawhia for Ge cost Gs 8d to pack a distance of about to milea." It is hard>y necessary to say that the doubling of the cost of the necessaries of life, by reason of the execrable nature of the roads, was not among the inducements which the Government held oat to intending settlers to take up these highly-deairuble sections, and that probably not one of them would have touched the settlement at all if ho had realised the fact. But after two years some relief was provided, not by the Government, which had trapped these unfortunate settlors and isolated them in the wilderness, but by the enterprise of Captain o, ? Va (¥ u *». who brought ths

lirac vessel up the Marokopa River, which has slave acted as their base of supplies. Meanwhile the work of road m iking had been started by the Government, and stinted in what, if our correepondent’e nanative may ba accepted as accurate, appears to be a singularly perverse fashion. Ihe river might have been supposed to be the natural starting point, seeing that all stores, equipment, and material had to be brought from that end of the road. But in pursuance of a theory of which the same district seems te afford other illustrations, the opposite :oime wss pursued lin thi« instance. Work was begun up the Iviritohere Valley about three miles from the Afarokoph, the result being that the unfortunate set.lore were forced •' to use the coast track, which is very lough, with sharp jagged rooks and vary ste-p and dangerous rocks to get up and down, and only passable for about two hours each day at low water,” At the same time the men at the work on the road have to pack all that th*y require a distance of six miles along a dangerous track, whereas

on. mile wrtbout rain wouM h»« raffiwd “ ! “ ol * orthodox coune bad bean followed. . lal mpoamhlo to an accurate ram- ' mary of the extraordinar, story told br Mr Gregg of the patchwork fashion in which these roads are being constructed. First, a ' « k is begun at ths wrong end, and formed for two miles and a half; then a mile of swamp intervenes and is left untouched; then three-quarters o! a mile is cleared, but I- ft without drains or culverts; and so on It was natural that on such points as these, which raise questions of enrath u r thßa of K o * o ™ l Policy, we j P ablish * wply from the department alongside of our correspondents criticisms. But the Acting Works considers that “it would be inadvisable for him to enter into °f the subject in the newspaper.” WM far to ° jealous of the nonour of his department to be willing to

“uj. »• { cbance of setting it right, but bis subs- tuts has yet to learn that neither he himself nor the department occupies so lofty a pedestal as to entitle them to look down with contempt upon all news&aoer Whatever reply Mr M ,? owsll may ultimately deign to allow hi, export, to make on the ttchniod point., ths miserable lot of the rattlers for whom oar oorreependeat spades i a evidently beyond o«Ola. disproof. In a general way the hard- ' rb.m "V 1 . 8 bMbH °cks “ fa : rly famill >r theme, hat we have seldom seen them put IL f g 5" bi °n th “ to some of 1 th. incidents recorded in Mr Gregg's letter. three families are hying on the Kiitehere road at distances of abont three miles from ea h other, and n more thia th-ee years the women of these househoids h ire only been able to meet once on aeoonnt ot the eondiuen of the Iraok, 1 Not even on the oceasmn of th. bath or the death of h-° child was one of there unforlnn te women sole to re v un ,n tha _

Me to rely up,n the help and sympathy the others, for ths estranging mad forbid.But, for the funeral the mon, nt any rate' were able to tn-n out ; and it is a JicSS qnitejin the style if one of Bret Harte’ emiy ske.ches that on - correspondent of the cortege. “I can point yr u the procession ot stalwart m.m ml,sir Sinn Is and donga eos, with tw little ooiiin in.u-k r ung on a pole and Horne on two men’s .boulders, winding down a track through tie dense bush in slash up to th ,-ir kneesand Oier them in place. -to inter the body 10 a cemetery ratify . six miles away,” “Du you wonder, ’ our correspondent aska “at < women going mail living such a life ?’ jj J you wend r at even strung mau giving way to despair wh-n they roriwe that after years ol struggle an i h .rdsUips instead of thing, i I getting better, thjy are actually getting • worse ?” No W 3 do not wonder. But we do wonder at either men or women being fouud j to face the task; we do wonder at a Goveminent and a people with a spark of hu- ' inanity in tiv-m deliberately putting settlers I down to waste their lives and break their 1 hearts in such aurrounlings. Is the Government willing to perpetuate the f rad □ lent system of pushing settlement in advance of ‘ roads that makes such things possible I I What has the Minister for Lands to say j about it ? and what is he going to do about

MR BUBD REt'ianS AS ALSO DOES MR GREGG.

(to the editor kawhia settler. ) Sib, —Would you kindly find space in your valuable paper to publish, for the benefit of those interested, extracts from Mr T. Burd’s report to Chief Engineer re petition sent from bare to Hon. Minister of Public Works, and also my reply to same. Sir, I think it is high time that the settlers in the Te Kuiti road district are awakened to realise their position. Here we have a large district, equal to any in the Dominion for stock raising and dairying, but it has been kept in a stagnant state, not through any fault of the settlers, but by the peculiar methods of road making pursued by our District Engineer. It has long been impressed upon.me that he is not the man for the position, and that there will never be any real progress in the district as long as the present system of road making is carried on. I believe the time has come when we should make an united effort to get this “ Old Man of the Sea” off our shoulders. I ask all in the district to come forward and make public their wrongs, neglect, abuses, and

what not. No need to be afraid of the almighty Burd— remember he is your servant and not yonr God that you should bow down and woisbip him. t com all the settlers I have met in the district I have never heard one say a word in his praise, for nearly all condemned him in no measured terms, pet them now come forward and join in the fight or remain all their lives buried in the bush, without even a pack track to their holdings. Sir, you will notice chat Mr Burd confirms nearly all the charges made against him. He admits the fact that his dis-

triot ig the reverse of flourishing, and that all the settlers are dissatisfied. Who can wonder at it ? I will not touch on how the tracks are made at this time, as I think everyone m the district knows from sad experience how faithfully (?) to specifications these works are carried out- But I want to call the attention of the people here to the fact—that we have no one connected with the Auckland press to ventilate our wrongs neglect and unnecessary hardships. At the time I called public attention to diem in the Wellington Evening Post I also wrote a tetter to the New Zealand Herald and Auckland Weekly News, but they evi-

uenuy uaa not. me courage to pannsn it. Well, air, I thought the Weekly News at any rale, with its boast of being the settlers* friend, would be overjoyed to publish it and champion the oppressed settlers* cause. But I was mistaken, as no notice whatever was taken of it. No, sir, an item of news re a game of football at Marokopa, or lawn tennis at Kawbia is of far greater importance to the general pub tic than that some light should be let in on the dark spots of the Hoads Department. Sir, evidently tbe Chief Engineer regards Mr Burd’s rennet- as

a final answer, but are the settlers in the district satisfied ? I trust not. Are we going so allow this country to be ruled by irresponsible bureaux ? for that is what it ia really coming to. The Ministers of the day have no authority or control over those bureaux ; everything is left to their chief. It is a of the tail wagging the bead The Minister is controlled by the Dolartment, not the Department by the Minister.—Yours, etc.,

R. GRJEGG. Kiri inhere, 3rd Ooi., 1907.

MR BURD’S STATKMiJTr. (1) With regard to enquiry re the

way the roads have been formed in the above block. I ghail be oily too glad to welcome the same, as I feel confident that any engineer who has had experience in road construction in a rough country, and granted th a same conditions, would have acted in exactly the same way as I have d me. (2) The Marokopa Heads is where the settlers in Kiritebere get their supplies from since the steame' com inenced running there, bat under the exis ing circumstances this certainly wu not the place to commence operations on the Waiapa.ua R >ad (which by the way, is out of the ab >ve block, and, therefore block money cou.J o-t be expanded thereon), for th*i f -tlouing reason : Between the Heads <ud Kiritebere, on the old Maori tra:k the cliffs, there are two big hills co climb and the first, near th* be d., is a mero fl a a-bite to the second near Kiriteaere. I, therefore, st tried ibi< r »tl < ut of be grantof £2OO at tbe Kin>be.e er d in o dar that the fl-sr prim r.f iho r >ad when made a c rtaiu about two miles, could be cmmcM bv a temporary "track o i th j spur with the old Maori treck, and thus av L id by fir the worst portion -f the 1 tier, and also the rock j wb.ch, I a.u sure anv in m wi b a grain of common e would hive d me when there was o<a nearly enough mm.ey available to do be whole uistauc , audevm up to >be prese.it time I have u had sufficient m ra<-y to enabl* l ui ■ to do this, Cvnsequsntiy the pirim formed ca.naot yat bi ucilt ed Bui this is my misfortuop, not ray fault. (4) What M* G/egg c oiplaHs of here is the break-* in <hi f>.rmati<*n on

tho Ki iteberu Rj&d, By direct itstrne ions from the h.a i « ffise, I b td io leave the formation u jJjgo * hare (ho t»u face of the ground was good enough to allow stock, etc , to travel, ia order that as great a di lance could ba made available f >r traffic xspoesible j for the small am >unt of mjaey in tiand. Again, it is impossible to drain a flit road through bush cjuntry without hiyiogthi bush cleared first, and the stumping done, and when these vrorkg had been undertaken all the block l eading was expended. The Mangakokopu Road is a portion of the main road between Kiri [there and the railway, and it ia very important that chi? should he completed as well as the remaining portion ; of the Pomorangi Road, which will give access to the main Mahoenui tc Kawhia Road, in the Mangaoboe VaUey, and from here stock cm now be dnven to Te Kuiti on formed road. (7) Mr Gregg, in mentioning the track over the cliffs, omitted to tell the Minister that at low water it is

uuw luiuiswr iQUi iow waier it xs possible to take a pack horse along the beach the whole way between Marukopa beads and the Kiritehere A certain portion is covered with stcues, but still a horse can get along, a; on many occasions I have taken a packhorse there myself without unloading. His statement, too, of ten cbaias of formed track having cjst £3OO is er. tirely misleading; four miles and SO chains is available for traffic, th >ugh not drained all the way, wnich latter will come when sufficient mon<>y is available, and over one and a half chiles was made available for traffic out of the £3OO. (8) These men seem to imagine (why I can’t say) that I have power to transfer money which has boen voted by Parliament for one road, and ;ben expend it in some other place, bur, of course, you are aware that such is

utterly impossible without Miuistorial authority. The roads in this block are thePjmorangi, 2 miles 55 chains of whioo is formed out of 7 miles 39 chains ; the Whakahau, 3 miles 20 chains formed out of 9 miles ; Mangakokopu, 2 miles 7 chains formed out of 6 mills 6 chains, and Kairimu, 3 miles 20 chains formed out of 7 miles 61 chaos. Seven years ago last February w len the Hon Mr Duncan, then Minister of Utnds, Mr Barron, Assistant Surveyor General, Mr Mueller, Chief Survej-or, Auckland, and yourself cune through Te Kuiti, I took a map of the distiict down to Mr Hetefs boarding boise and pointed out to Mr Duncan the long distance this block was from the port and the railway, and how utterly useless it would be to treat it in xhe ordinary way with from 2s 6d to 5s an acre loading, as this amount was wholly inadequate to what wae required, and I urged, and you and Mr I Mueller kindly backed me up, that sufficient money should be raised on this block so as to complete the reading to the port and railway within uwo years and before the land was thrown open for selection. Mr Duncan turaed

to Mr Mueller and told him not to put the land on the market until this bad been done, to which he replied “I quite igree with what Mr Burd says.” A schema was got out for loading etch section with its proportion of txhe total cost, and I commenced operations in the centre of the main read through the block, and at each end, and also the construction of the outlet to the railway, and just as I got io full swing and had everything going well in cmnection with the same, the work w e suddenly stopped, our beautiful cbeine knocked on the head, and the laud was put in the market with ab it i quarter of the loading there sb ml 1 have been on it, and the result is n y ipparent now. I venture to say b s had our scheme been carried out. whole of the district would have u . iu a flourishing condition to-day, and the settlers would have bad road* their doors aud been satisfied; A ml* such was not to be.

In c inclusion, I am very sorry indeed that Mr Gregg has the no'ion th it I work agßinst the settlers, f >r I think that anybody who is brought into obso contact with mo is absolutely sure that is not the case. I trust that you will Rr»e that these charges that have been brought against me are entiiely without foundation in any shape or form, and I am sure that the same applies to Inspector Barrou,

who is in local cbarye of the work. Mr Barron’s long exjerience under Mr Murray, District Road Engineer, New Plymouth. before he cime here, and tho conscientious and capable way in which be bas always carried out bis duties, are sufficient deni)l to any shithat might be cast up >n bis character. MR GREGG REPLIES. Mj Gregg has written as follows to the Chief Engineer of Roads : *• Sir, —With your permission I shall briefly answer extract from report of Mr T. Burd, District Roads Engineer (1) Since tbo District Engi noer and your petitioners are in accord why uo yon delay sending an officer to examine and report as requested. Tbi.’ in my opinion would be the wisest thing to do. (2) N Mr Burd’s a j sertion, this was the place to com mence operatior.a, and such was the emphatic opinion of Mr Barron the first time he came into the blocK, after expending much energy in climbing tbo recks between Marokopa and Eiritehere. And furthermore the Waipa road is in the block, and is a most im portant road too. Ha reason for not doing so I shall quote. Sir, can you see any reason in it ? I can’t:—“Between the Heads and Eiritebere on tho old Maori track on the cliff* there are two big hills to climb, and the first near the Heads is a mere flea bite to the second near Eiritebere.” He then admits that he started at the wrong end, » 8 stated in the petition. He bas now 8 acted, or proposes to Start, at the right end, by clearing a track about 80 chains up a spur to connect with the road, and making a farther 40 chains of formed track to Connect with tbe work already done. This temporary track will cost, I dare Bay, £Bo—mere waste of money. (Sir, I ask you is it not time these temporary makeshifts should cease and the spent on tbe public road instead). This temporary track will not 60 inc ct in any way with the o’d Maori trick mentioned, as s'a’ed by Mr Burd. Now, 1 see no reasen why Mr Burd should not have started tbe work here in the first place, as well as now. 1 believe there would have baen as much work done for tho money, if not more, and would have saved tbe men working m ib an enormous amount < f drudgery in getting to and from their W -rk. Mr Burd pay* this is his micfortune, not bis fault. Well, I can quite believe it must be a great mis fortune for a man in bi-* p sition. (4) I maintain, sir, that there is not a greater baehed up piece of mad than the Eiritebere in the whole Do minion. Mr Burd says he had in Btroctions from tbe bend office to leave the best parts of the road untouched, so that the money could go further; but here nlso his great misfortune stood in his way, as be left the bad places untouched and did tbe good. I quote “ Agelr, it is imnosbible to drain a flat road through tu-h country without having the bush cleared first and tbe stum sing done, and when these works had been undertaken all tbe block loading bad been expended.” This I take it refers to a mile of clearing do ie last autumn by Mr Wouldes, and which was tbe subject of several letters which pigged between myself and Mr Burd. This mile, sir, is the impassable swi mp on tbe Eiritebere, and the chief cause of all this trouble. Had Mr Burd and bis assistants been Bo anxious to serve u=» then as they are now I dare say Eiritebere would never have been heard of 10 miles outside its boundary. I will try to explain : The last hnlf mile of formation runs along a swamp and about three Chains of swamp ahead. This three chains we asked to have formed. When tbe contract was let to Wouldes we were promised it would be done at once. Had it been done then it would have given us tbe use of this half-mile of formed track, and saved us a mile of tbe very worst portion of our track through tbe busb. When we mentioned it again we were sneered at—- “ There is no money available.” Now, eir, this was incorrect, as 1 proved to Mr Burd in my last letter to him. He had no reply to make, but that he was coming in to see tbe roads and would call on me. But be has not come and does not intend to. [Mr Burd left Kawhia for Eiritebere on Thursday.— Ed.] But bo bad the money to let tbe clearing and the formation of a mile of tbe same road (where there was a very fair track) a mile further on. Now, sir, 1 want to know, and every settler ©n the road wants to know, why Mr Burd did not let tbe formation with tbe clearing to Mr Wouldes. Is this also chargeable to his misfortune or is it bis fault. Had he done so I dare flay Mr Wouldes would have had sense enough to have cleared tbe bush off the road before he undertook its formation. (5) This is very strong in support, of our petition to have these tracks opened out * this reason so that we can get stock in and out. (7) I did state that the beach track was passable for about two hours each day at low water, but I say it is not a safe pack track. Possibly Mr Burd did eft a o n ck horse around there once. Whnt I said was that we bad tbe use of 10 chains of formed track for an exnendi‘U'-e nf £BOO, and can prove it too. There are not 4 miles 80 chains of track on Eiritebere road available for traffic. The road is only a little over 6 miles altogether n,nd 8 miles ypt remains to be formed. He might uthfuUy c ay that the whole distantra is avail )hie for traffic, as it is, but not on Mr Burd’s track. These men never imagined or said such a thing. What follows is outside of this block, and has nothing whatever io do with us. I take it tn refer fo blocks on the Kawbia Bouth-Mahoe-nui road, but all tbo same I am pleased that Mr Burd admits his incapacity for his position by admitting the failure of bis beautiful schemes, as all such schemes must fail which are not based on practical knowledge and executed

with judgment and common sense. He also admits that bis district ie in a very unflouriebing condition and tbe He’tiers io a very dissatisfied state today, and no wonder when we find a number of these settlers who have been on tbe land for nearly seven years, although situated on the main road Marokopa to Hangatikiare to-day without a track to their holdings. All these things I suppose must be laid to bis misfortune not bis fault.

Mr Burd is all too ready to bring in Mr Barron and to pass judgment on him before be is charged with any offence. I believe 1 have never men tioned his name in either communication to the Minister. Now, sir, in conclusion, I ask you this. We have charged Mr Burd with inoapa city and unfitness for his work. You haye referred those charges to him to report thereon. Are you going to accept his report as final, i.e., allow the person charged to be bis own judge, or are you going “to grant our most reasonable request that an officer of tbe Department from either Wellington or Hawkes Bay be sent here to (xamine into his (Mr Burd’s) peculiar methods, and report thereon ? Sir, I am a settler here, and all my interests are centered in this district, as well as others. I should like to sea the cause of its past and present stagnation removed (for no one can truthfully deny that it is stagnant, when your District Road Engineer admits it), so that we could wheel into line with the other parts of the Dominion and march onward with them to prosperity” .

We are reliably informed that this subject is likely to be ventilated in the Supreme Court, it being alleged that tbe charges are libellous.