Manawatu Herald. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1889. HOW NOT TO DO IT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume II, Issue 281, 4 October 1889, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1889. HOW NOT TO DO IT.

The colony of New Zealand offers instances every day of the gran i old system of doing things the wrong way. Wednesday's Court brought up once again the old trouble about the right along the river bank, and as regards the case under review there is much to be said on both sides. Ihe settler who took, up land on the bank oi the river in front of a swamp, believed .hat, as the Provincial Government sold him the laid with tho easement along the river, he could at all times travel that "way, even supposing thn swamp was never sufficiently drained to allow a road to be made. On tho other hand the owner of one of theso sections having secured an outlot by a ro >d is necessarily inconvenienced i>y having a traffic through his property, and over the land whic > ho may have paid for, as in very many cases the old bridle track is chains out in the river. These sections we are wfll aware were laid out in certain acreages, bounding the right of way along the river bank, bufc in no case in the wording of the Crown Grants was there reserved a right of" way a'ongthe river r should the space first surveyed be destroyed by the act'oa of the water. If the question was one affecting the pereonai conveni nee of a few of our settlers, it w-u!d not have amounted to so much importance, but the doubt that hangs over the right to use a tra?k a!on, the margin of a tidal stream, is of very much consequence to the whole business of the distriot, The

result of the case of Smith v. Saunders has at present shown that thore is no path aloug the river hank. We contend that the surveyor who laid these sections off, in the early days of settlement, was guilty of great neglect in not securing, without the possibility of -'nny misun.ifrstandin^, to the public th© rig*! it to tr ivel along the bank of the i iver, as it ns already been required for tOvviiig pup/ose_, and may be much more needed iri tih-e to come ; yet the residents along its bants _fe' putting up further obstructions year i<y year. We do n t desire to be thought that we are objecting to the owners using the property which they have paid for, as there are properties which have been so cut into by the floods that if allowance had to be made for the public use, very | little of the land would remain availI able for the owners. We balieve t that tho Government should take steps, even at this late hour in the day and preserve a way along the river, on the principle they now reserve a portion of land around all [lakes. The land is not so very valuable, but that the right" could" be La^ttd af, a reasonable cost where exist, and where it still outlay would preeven if the original be washed away. with river fronunderstand their posibe careful not to H||^^obstruetions on the towing* If something is not sooii done, it may become so expensive that nothing will be done, and thus th c use of the river will be sei iously impaired to the inhabitants of the district.