The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 1880.

Kumara Times, Issue 1077, 13 March 1880, Page 2

The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. SATURDAY, MARCH 13, 1880.

On Monday next the residents of this district will be honored with a visit from one of the present Ministry, the Hon the Minister of Public Works, and as the intervening time is so short, it will require prompt action on the part of those deputed to interview him relative to the various public works, in definitely determining what are. most urgently required to be brought under his notice. As a mining community, resident on a goldfield in which the supply of water necessary to thoroughly and exhaustively work the field daily increases, and the knowledge that the completion of the present Government sludge-channel will be a further course

of encroachment on the already limited supply, we take it that this is one of the most vital questions to which his attention should be directed. By the purchase of the Okuku water reservoirs and race the Government would be in a position to command the supply of the whole field, and in the face of this being—which it eventually will— the largest sluicingground in the colony—the outlay, we consider, would return a good percencentage on the expenditure incurred. In support of this argument we would instance the present Government water-race, and ask whether it was not this goldfield that was mainly instrumental in making the general satisfactory returns from its various sources which they now are 1 Another and very important subject is the transformation of the track from Dillman’s Town to the Christchurch road into a dray road. This work would be beneficial not only to the inhabitants here, but to a large number of settlers on the Christchurch road, and would effect a saving in distance of about five miles. Then again, through its agency the mail coach from Christchurch would be enabled to convey its mails and passengers here direct, proceeding to its destination via Goldsborongh and Stafford Town. The road to the Teremakau bridge is also a question which should receive the serious consideration of the Minister for Public Works, as at the present time the road (if such it may be termed) is not only at one part almost useless for traffic, but is dangerous to man and beast. With the construction of the bridge it was in contemplation to form a new road out of the unexpended portion of the vote; and we have little doubt if the matter were submitted to the Minister of Works in a proper light, the Government would authorize the construction of this necessary work. These to our mind form the chief items of the programme of the requirements of this district, as although there are many others to which we could allude, the present financial state of the colony will not justify the Government in undertaking innumerable works in the various districts j and on these grounds we submit the public bodies should only ask for those absolutely necessary and which there is reasonable cause to opine the Government will endorse.