Coaching Alterations.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 525, 27 May 1880, Page 2

Coaching Alterations.

WHAT NEXT ? The daily up-conch from Kai Iwi to Stratford cannot get over the roads in time to make connection with the trains The struggle has boon continued lately under increasing difficulty, and might have been maintained if the Government had not withhold the wages of surfacemen on the Mountain road within this County, and so compelled their discharge at the critical period when heavy’ rains require vigilant attention of road-men to maintain a passable track. The men are struck off, the rains continue, the coach gets stuck-up several times a week, the train at Stratford cannot be caught, and beloved Taranaki is almost isolated from the civilised world. How many hundreds of men, how many thousands of pounds, arc being concentrated by Government on the opening of a new track by the coast, this said track being discussed as a colonial affair of high policy, while the Mountain road that we must use daily, and over which our goods and passengers must go, is being shut up and almost abandoned because Government cannot afford to maintain half-a-dozen spade laborers. That is financing with a vengeance ! It is on the principle of burning down your house to light your pipe. TUc up-coach is going to run halfjourneys, commencing probably next week* Instead of attempting the through journey to ; Stratford in one day, the coach will break the run at Normanby, stopping there at night, and going on next morning to connect with the train at Stratford, Tho' run between Kai Iwi and Stratford will occupy two days. The badness of the roads, especially beyond Normanby, in the wild region of tiie Mountain Koad, has the effect of doubling the distance by doubling the time. Yet the Government are able to show, as a set-off, that in abandoning an old road which might cost £ls a week to keep open, they are spending several hundreds a week in clearing a new track which goes nowhere at present. They will be able to demonstrate, also* that the new track is a political experiment, intended to open up the private land of those Maoris to whom King McLean made promises which must bo fulfilled at the pakehas’ expense. It is not less important that these promises shall be fulfilled before Parliament has opportunity to ascertain what promises were ever made, because Parliaments are always troublesome, and are best managed by consulting them after a thing is done and finished. That’s the now policy under which our through road is being abandoned to the ravages of winter rains. We are to to be all stuck-up together, politically and practically, because the Colonial Treasurer is so busy balancing his books that he has forgotten, not only the settlers in Patea County, who are not New Plymouth Brothers, and don’t count among the “elect,” but ho lias actually forgotten the sugar-loaf city itself. That is strange !