ALFREDTOWN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4591, 7 December 1875, Page 3

ALFREDTOWN.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STEW ZEAXA3TD TCME3. Sib. —Some twelve or thirteen years ago our present Superintendent (being then Land Commissioner) paid this district an official visit. Then he judged fit and set apart this place as a township and small farm settlement. Some five or sir years thereafter it was surveyed as such and offered for sale. I believe eveiy acre and section sold- The purchasers bought with the assured understanding that the provincial authorities were to open a road to the nearest port (Castle Point).-, But what has been the case ? The provincial chest has received the proceeds of the sale; the purchasers who tried to settle have with two exceptions failed in the attempt, and have had to leave their iiftif finished improvements to go to decay, solely (they will all tell you) from want of a road to get goods in or out, the cost being £l4 per ton in summer, and in winter they are not to be got in at tmy price. They (the settlers) have gradually left it in disgust, some ruined in purse, and others crippled in health. If a road had been made to Castle Point, the cost of goods from Wellington would have been £5 per ton. Indeed, all that is now needed is opening about six miles of bush road to enable them to get their goods conveyed at this price. There has been voted for making this road from year to year, “per the Wellington Public Works Loan Act,” sums of money: with what result? Should his Honor pay it a visit now, he would find that the road is quite as bad (I think he will .have a lively recollection of his first), if not worse, than on his first visit; and not only that, but he would ascertain that his engineers have not yet surveyed a road into it on this route, and that the poor uncomplaining settlers that still stick to it are spending money on the original .Maori track with a grade of something like 1 foot in 6. He would also find, if he* does not already know, that the road has been surveyed and works gone on with to a point where it will only advantage the two moat influential landowners (Waterhouse and Taylor), and no further. I think it would only be tardy justice and a graceful act in terminating his (Mi'. Pitzherbert’s) official reign as Superintendent, seeing he was the originator of this settlement, to cause a road to be surveyed and opened this summer to this really fine country, so as to allow it a chance oi becoming a centre of settlement now, as assuredly it will soma day. This certainly is one of the cases the anti-Provin-cialists have a just grievance to point to as being committed by the provincial authorities to an outlying settlement.—l am, &c.. Justice. November 29. -