"THAT FAVOURED TOWNSHIP."

Patea Mail, Volume III, Issue 227, 13 June 1877, Page 2

"THAT FAVOURED TOWNSHIP."

(To the Editor of the Patea Mail.)

Sir— “ Ratepayer ” seems to be in a bad way about the Nonnanby petition, and judging from the tone of his letter in your last issue, I should imagine would like to throw a little dust in the eyes of the public. What works of “ less importance ” to this “ favoured township ” does he imagine he is alluding to when he presumes the petitioners are urging upon the Council the desirability of discontinuing them ? We know not of any works that have been begun by the Council hero as yet. It would be something akin to the miraculous for that august body to discontinue what never was commenced by them. As to the two roads “ Ratepayer ” mentions —one on each side of the township. One of them might as well bo in Timbuctoo for all the good it is to Norrnanby at present, or the majority of the settlers round about. Of course it is a very good outlet for Mr Casey, and Tim Mori-arra/t-ty, whenever they want to toddle off to Hawera, and for whose special benefit a very costly bridge was erected by the Road Board, besides other culverts and cuttings. At the same time Ido not wish you to infer that the abovementionod works were unnecessary. On the contrary, they were much required, to give the settlers abovenamed, and two or three others, an outlet from their properties ; but beyond these four or five bush settlers, and these only, the road is seldom used by any one else. With regard to the other road, it is, as “ Ratepayer ” remarks, “ in a most deplorable state,” and nothing to what it will be before the winter is over ; bat even this fact itself only tends to prove how much the road is used, not only by the settlers and people living here, but by the natives and travelling public generally. But what “ Ratepayer ” seems to buck most at, is the audacity of the Nonnanby people in petitioning the Council for a road at all. He seems to think they should go on groping their way about in the mud, and be content to pick up the crumbs that fall from a stingy Road Board’s table, in the shape of a few fascines over a bog-hole, but we do not intend to be content with this.

The majority of settlers in a district may, surely, have a voice with the powers that be in determining which way a main road shall be taken, and it is seldom bad policy on their part to try and meet the wishes of the people, and we are only asking for what it would be a great injustice to deprive us of. There is no attempt on our part as “ Ratepayer ” would imply, to divert the road to the injury of other landholders ; we simply ask the Council to make the road, as laid olf by the Government. Of course we know that the Council have not, as yet, taken'over the Mountain Road from the Government, —but, provided the Government find the necessary funds for carrying on the work, it would be extremely bad policy on the part of the Council, not to take over the road, as we have already had quite enough plums extracted from our pie by the Taranaki “Jack Horners.”—l am, &c.,

GO-AHEAD,