BACKWATER ROAD BOARD.

Motueka Star, Volume I, Issue 16, 4 October 1901, Page 4

BACKWATER ROAD BOARD.

special meeting. [contributed] . Present Messrs Etab (chairman) Sandy, Bear, Grid, Roast and Semaj. The Chairman said he had convened the meeting on receipt of a telegram from the Minister of Marine, in answer to the request of the board that the Much awake Council be prevented from carrying out their project of making the members of that Board stand on their heads. The reply from the Minister was to him incomprehensible and unintelligible, and although fairly conversant with Greek and Hinduseani and having some small acquaintance -with Maori he was utterly at a loss to decipher the message, which appeared to be somthing of the nature of a cryptograph, However, he would read the cable received that morning. Wellington, 20-8-01. Instructions: Urgent, Collect. To the Chairman of the Backwater Road Board. I am instructed by the Minister of Marine to acknowledge the receipt o yours of the 12th and to inform you that you can sezalb ot og. J. Glasskae, Sec. Marine Dept. He had to pay 4s 6d it being a collect message, and after the Board had deciphered it, he would ask that he be reimbursed to that extent. Mr Bear said, although not present at the last meeting, he was in. full sympathy with the resolution passed. He had been ill for a long time, and to be up-ended suddenly would probably cause asphyxia. There was a new schoolmaster down his way, and a good man too, might be able to understand the wire ; he couldn't. Mr Sandy : Pass it here. Hum ! which way do you read it ? The chairman : Read it ? why sraight through, of course; it's the three last words I can't understand. Mr Sandy: Can't you ? I can, and I don't feel well. Mr Semaj : " Let's have a look ! well 1 can make nothing of it;" and he handed it to Mr Grid ; who after looking carefully at it, passed it on to Mr Roast. Mr Roast: I'm 110 great shakes at this sort of thing, but it's as plain as daylight. Read it round the other -way. The chairman (taking back the cable) carefully and slowly did as instructed, Mr Sandy smiling grimly the while. The chairman : Gentlemen this is a dirty, unmerited insult. I have supported tnis Government through thick and thin, when they were right, and when they were wrong, and after reading this message I am prepared to admit that my confidence has been woefully misplaced. Gentlemen, what can we do ? Mr Semaj said they were in sore straits; being thrown on their resourses, it behove them to be up and doing, or, before you you could say knife! the whole Board would be like Brown, upside down, with their legs sticking up in the air. He would reiterate what he had said last meeting. He heavy, and it would hurt him ; he had tried it on a bag of chaff, and had no desire to try it again. He reckoned the Government was rotten. He went across the river the other night and the people were talking about the Board and their resolution. Mr Roast said he was across there the other day and heard something about two doctors coming to Backwater ; 'what the dickens they meant he didnt know. Mr Grid said that if the corporation meant mischief it was well to be pre-

obtain for it. This dist i;t is quite able to get eightpenee or niuepence a pound for its wool if it went to work in the right way. We suggested an idea some time ago when we wrote ' Don't send Home bales of wool which fetch only fourpence a pound—send Home bales of blankets, which would fetch eighteen-pence or two shillings a pound ; set up a factory in your own district which will turn out three or four tons of blankets per diem all the year round. Sell the blankets in London ; and when the cost of making and exporting is deducted, there will surely, be eightpenee or ninepence a pound for the growers."