ROAD MATTERS IN KINOHAKU.

Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 336, 1 November 1907, Page 3

ROAD MATTERS IN KINOHAKU.

(to the editor). Sir, —T Live like all other settlers, read with delight the excellent championing of the settlers cause by Mr Gregg; I should like you to allow me to add a quota of evidence upon the general incompetence and incapacity of the roads Department in this district, I have been in this district six years, ahd I do aver Mr Grogg’s statement is the correct one, arid it there is an cn quiry some peculiar side lights will be thrown upon the methods of road construction pursat d. I can chow a case here of the Mangapohno Road, where is took about two months by three men to grade about three milef, and cost about £BO, the road never being taken there a' ail, while a man standing at. a given point coaid see both grades (Doing a clearing), tho one where the road has been taken nn’d the one whore the wasteful expenditure was allowed to take place. This same road, the most important in the block (although Mr Burd has repeatedly denied it, even after every man in the district has signed a jetition for its immediate construction), has crawled along at the rate of about a mile a year. At the end of this same road, oomstrue tion work is being done in isolated patches, and in tho whole two miles no provision han been made either by putting culverts in lhe fillings or in thesmali running td reamlets—of which the road .fairly bristles—consequently where the fillings have been put in the late rains have washed them all out, and they must be all replaced. Upon this same road can be seen a small bridge or two which are speaking monuments to the man that engineered them and a danger to either man aud beast that cresses them. 1 know of cases where the Road Overseer has displayed more pertinacity than ability in finding a grade, and after expending time and capital in grading the whole work has to be redone by the man above him—and the Wbakapirau is not an isolated ca»e by any means. Cases of wasteful incompetence could be shown ad. infinitum. But. wo can see in this enquiry a chance Io lift the heavy dark pall that has caused twothirds of the distress and suffetiug, and has been th-j means of making this one of the most miserable, instead of one of the most prosperous, parts of the Dominion. Wo are still with all the expenditure, ail the overseeing, without wba f , any ongiueer would call a rosd. Aud so we can assure Mr Burd we sincerely, like himself, wel Come the enquiry, and we can also assure him that there are few men upon this block who will go in sackcloth and ashes or shed one solitary tear if the enquiry should “speed the parting guests”. Yours etc., PETER ROSS.