OUR PUBLIC ROADS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 281, 13 November 1862, Page 5

OUR PUBLIC ROADS.

{To the Editor of the Otago Daily Tones.) Sir,— Your powerful pen was effectively used in exciting public attention to the state of our roads before the winter months set in. I fear your valuable services will-be again called into requisition, or we shall be no better oft this winter than we were the last. There seems to*be an important screw loose somewhere. I take an interest in our roads. 1 hey ire the main arteries through or along which travel the vital elements of our internal existence. Good roads lessen <he cost of carriage, makes travelling a pleasure, increases the value of land and house-hold property, brings tiie distant producer into communication with the distant consumer to the mutual advantage of all. I—.To the digger it is next to the existence of gold. What does it avail the digger if he make an ounce per week if it take £1 per day to keep him ? Money is voted to make and eouipletc ouy rouds, but why are they not done ] Take for example, the roa*. across the Taieri Plains it is now metalled, but why s.re the bridges loft as they arc—almost, impassable ? \\ hose fault is it 1 This money has been voted for the work ; then why are the bridges left unfinished? Is our inspector for the oistrict incompetent to design a bridge, and superintend its erection ? If so, lettae public be bettor served. But the answer to remarks on this head is the o'd and. hackneyed 1-m-guage 'of rel-tapeisui. " I am but a servant, and cainiot do mote than I am ordered, through the K-oad Board." -Throuoh the lioad Board ! This constitutional body can do nothing wrojig or little •ight. These roads without bridges remind me o''the blunders of the executive in England during- the Crimean war—they sent the soldiers winter clothes.by one vessel,'aud the buttons by another. When th*:y arrived our army was perish--ins with cold and hunger. One vessel was wrecked, and Bore-as and Ns;pmn<;was saddled with the blunfiers_of our many-headed uiiiciaiy. JVVhai we w:mt is th'-rou^li, competent, energetio officials, and of thes.; t'i-i pre.-ent staff contain many, ltthey wew properly placed and consider::™!)- treated. (Jnrpul slipper ami render phiWjj.-hy will not do iv times like tiio present. G*ye our oiii'cials power equal to their responsibilities, wii.li a salary commensurate with their si. i:l, and the psoapi'ct of honorable promotion. Let there be ouo governing head competent to receive and digest aivp<rt, with powers to give it force and effect, i'hc public aud the press, are ever o.i tin; alert to watch their conduct, and seldom fail in their full appree.iY.tibn of their (kserts. What can we expect, if our executives are but'ressei like a pyramid with ofnem's, around which a report is drawn iv a coii,lik« an Archimedean screw, before it arrives at theseat of oiilciai animal ion. This conglomerate of heads become*, thr-jugh "ru-:pect to their superiors," a perfect nonentiiy ; whose ideas are as much ronfused as a ba; e of oiirat, cotton, from their vtjfy numbers ; so that I much four if' au origin 1 detfign from a working hea-.', would bii again locognised by the parent. Let the public once make up their minds to have fewer heads, but more useful o;ies; remunerative saljries, wilh a fair field open to honorable promotion ; then shall we find ambition excited by noble impulses, and the public will be spared the expense of useless appendages. An Engineer.