HAWERA.

Patea Mail, 3 August 1880, Page 3

HAWERA.

[from our correspondent.]

BRANCH OFFICE OF THE MAID Monday Evening. The telegraph operator at the Hawera office, Mr Anderson, is to to be retained here, the previous notice being cancelled. Probably the Wellington clerk who was ordered to this office has found other employment. The disbanding of the Hawera Rifle Corps is gazetted. A meeting of the committee appointed to look into the matter of separation of this part of the County, was held at Owen’s hotel, last Saturday. Not many of the gentlemen forming it turned up. The discussion mostly turned upon the form of petition, and the boundaries of the proposed County. Of course the new County cannot be gazetted until after the meeting of next Parliament, and by that lime we hope the Plains will carry a good population of new settlers, who no doubt will feel strongly the evil they labor under in being so far removed from the scat of local government. To any thinking mind it must be obvious that the system of separate government by Road Board and County Council is very expensive, particularly in departmental expenses, and at the same time the work is not done in that thorough manner it would be if these two local bodies were merged into one. For instance, take the case of the road superintendent: in this County less skill is required from the County engineer than that of a Road Board overseer, as the roads over which he has command have been already laid off and gravelled, and his duty is simply to see to their maintenance, whereas a Road Board overseer has to lay off new roads and see that the contracts are properly carried out, and as the County is opened up this daily becomes a more serious item to Road Beards. The Whakamara Block may be fairly instanced as a specimen.

The road between Hawera and Normanby is in a disgraceful state. There are holes in some places big enough to bury a dray—in fact one dray lies alongside the road in this particular locality minus a wheel, as a warning to travellers and a reproach to the powers that be. One more unfortunate—Mr E. J. Blake, native interpreter of Normanby, has been obliged to call a meeting of his creditors. At a meeting held last week it was decided to give him time.