The Standard. (PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND SATURDAY.) TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1874.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 121, 13 January 1874, Page 2

The Standard. (PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND SATURDAY.)

TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1874.

“ U e shall sell to no man justice or right: e shall deny to no man justice or right: e shall defer to no man justice or right.”

If the Ratepayers are determined to do nothing towards ascertaining the exact position they occupy with respect to their liability for the repairing and improving of the trunk lines of the province,—or at any rate so many of them as are in the Poverty Bay district—we are equally determined that they shall not have us to blame for not reminding them of what is going on.

At the latter end of last year we had occasion to remark on what we still consider to be a very unsatisfactory expenditure of the revenue of the Road Board in maintaining the main highways in the district; and our attention is again drawn to the question by the tenders that are now being called for, for a further outlay on these roads.

It can hardly be necessary to state that e do not for a moment deny the utility of the application of money in keeping the trunk lines in travellable repair j nor do we deny that they sadly require to be improved ; but we do protest against the money subscribed by the settlers in the shape of a property tax being applied to that purpose while the present anomalous state of things lasts ; and we repeat it is the duty of the settlers to call upon the Road Board to satisfy them as to what the relative dutv of the general Government and the Board is, in reference to the three trunk roads which have been proclaimed bv the .Governor in Council as being placed under the provisions of the tion a " d Public Works Act .871. 'J hatproclamation removes these J™*’ the control of the Projjy p] ac i n g them

in Pbe hands of the (Governor for the purpose of administration, consequently, Road Boards, being creations of Provincial Governments, this district Board, it would seem, has no authority over them either; and the money now being laid out on them, out of local revenue, while it is not useless, may, nevertheless, be unnecessary. But whatever the duty of either the Board or the Government may be in this matter, it is only right that the Ratepayers should know why the Road Board continues to expend money on highways that have been placed out of its reach, under the provisions of an Act which reserves to the Governor alone the right of maintaining and improving them, and why, as this is the case, the General Government does not take this burden on itself.