The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHBD EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.) SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1875.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 320, 30 October 1875, Page 2

The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHBD EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1875.

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

There is no end to our complaints against the Central Government. No sooner are we done with exposing and assailing them for one act of injustice towards us than necessity is laid upon us to take up the cudgels against them in another, and thus we are reluctantly compelled, from their own

causing, to maintain, as it were, a constant attitude of hostility towards them. Everybody knows that the formation of trunk lines of road throughout the Colony, devolves upon the General Government, as it does upon all Governments of British dependencies. An instance which is an exception to this rule, has, however, just come under our notice, and as it immediately concerns our own district; we are bound to take notice of it. The formation of the main road from Ormond to its junction with the Opotiki bridle track, via Kaiteratahi Hill, or the Kateratahi road, as it is generally called, has never been completed—about half a mile thereof being still in its primeval state. This unformed portion of the thoroughfare ’ situated at the Kaiteratahi hill, and at such a declivitous part of the route as to render it absolutely impossible tor vehicles of any description to get along. Owing to to this impassable barrier the road is not, of course, available for public traffic in

■he proper sense of the term ; and r he surrounding settlers are consequently put to the greatest inconvenience by being necessitated to adopt absurdly circuitous deviations from the main road—extending, in some instances, to distances from five to seven miles—in going from or returning to their respective places of abode. Nor is this all. In making use of these roundabout ways they become trespassers upon other people’s lands; and one gentleman, (Mr. Kempthohse) through whose propertv a considerable portion of the road chiefly us°d in avoiding the Kaiteratahi obstruction, has, we understand, lately threatened to suspend permission as to the further use of thisthoroughfare, and what thesettlers are to do now they know not. Some two or three months ago the settlers applied to the Highway Board to complete the formation of the road in question, at the same time pointing out the hardships to which they are subjected by being deprived of the use of a main road which, for trafficking purposes, was essential to the prosperity of the district. The Board, finding that they were not bound by law to construct main trunks, either in whole or in part, made application to the General Government for the execution of the work; but to their unqualified surprise received a reply stating that the Government declined to undertake to do so on the ground that it devolved on the Board itself to complete the formation of the road—a quibble at which our readers will not express any surprise, coming, as it does, from a quarter in which every regard to the requirements of Poverty Bay has been long since set at nought. "What further steps the settlers intend to take in the matter we know not. One thing we do know, and that is, that the Government have treated them most unjustly, and that they are, therefore, entitled to redress.