MEMORIAL.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 225, 27 June 1873, Page 5

MEMORIAL.

■ A petition, originally coming from Hyde, has been forwarded us for publication. . The object the petitioners have 'n view is the very desirable one of opening up Strathtaieri. We are glad that the memorial is being extensively signed throughout the district. Copies of the petition are to be sent to all the out districts for signature. To his Honor the Superintendent, and Members of the Provincial Council, Dunedin, in session assembled— The petition of the undersigned residents in the Mount Ida district, Otago, Humbly ehoweth: 1. That about eight years ago the Government caused a line of road to be surveyed from Silver Stream, Taieri, to Kyeburn, via Hiridon, Cottisbrook and Strathtaieri, through Hyde—which was then contemplated to be the main trunk line to Naseby and Clyde-—and afterwards selected the route via Palmerston and Pigroot, not taking" into consideration the hilly nature of. the country, which- the present road runs through, and quite unfit for sett]ement for a distance of upwards of twenty miles, namely, from Coal Creek tc liyeburn. 2. That all the Crown land 3 available for settlement on the line of the present road through Shag Valley to Waihemo are taken up, and in the hands of private individuals. 3. That the proposed - road from Silver Stream, through Strathtaieri and Hyde, would bring the Goidfields towns of St. Bathans, Elackstone Hill, Naseby, Kyeburn, Sowburn, Hamilton, and Hyde, a distance , of thirty miles nearer to Dunedin than by the present route, via Pigroot and Palmerston, besides coming through a much lower country, and not liable to be snowed in during severe wea-' ther. s 4. That a large tract of first-class agricultu- I ralland in the Strathtaieri plains, would be' available for settlement by the Government opening up this route, and would, no doubt, increase the value of Crown Lands in the vicinity considerably ; in addition to giving settlers facilities lor sending their produce to either the Dunedin. or Mouut Ida markets, a want much felt in this district. 5. That about three years ago a Hundred was declared on the Strathtaieri, a portion of which was bought and settled on, but in consequence of. no roads being opened up to enable them to send their . produce. to market, some of the settlers were compelled to give up farming, and sell their lands to the squatter, on his own terms. 6. That owing to the great and liberal progress made by the Government in constructing the Southern Trunk Railway, which will absorb all the traffic from Queenstown, Cromwell, and Clyde, and also the intention of the Government to construct a railway from Dunedin to Oainaru, which will absorb all the traffic in the Waihemo and Shag Vallev districts, . Your memorialists therefore pray that from the.facts above stated you will be - pleased to direct a -survey to be made of the proposed route, and that your honorable House will be pleased ,'to vote a sum- of (£5000) five thousand pounds, to be expended in opening up the line as to the Government may seem fit. And your memorialists, as in duty bound, will ever pray..