The Telephone. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, WEDNESDAY, MAY 7.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 125, 7 May 1884, Page 2

The Telephone. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, WEDNESDAY, MAY 7.

A. communication of considerable importance to the district has been forwarded to the County Council, and will be laid before the next meeting

of that body to-morrow night, urging upon them the advisability of taking immediate steps to have that portion of the (-risborne-Wairoaßoacl, between the Waihan Lakes and Te Being®, laid off on the permanent grades and formed as soon as possible. It will be remembered that a special grant of £2,500 was first expended on this road but was found only sufficient to carry it to the top of the Ahimani Range, and a further grant of £1,500 was expended on the same, but again failed to complete the road further than the Waibau Lakes, thus leaving about six miles to finish and connect the whole important work with that portion which had been pushed out from the Wairoa as far as Opoiti. Our energetic neighbours have prosecuted the work at their end with the greatest perseverance, and are now engaged in throwing a substantial bridge across the Mangapoiki stream, and are also urging on our Council the importance of the subject with a view of completing the thoroughfare from end to end. The carrying out of the work in its entirety must prove of immense benefit in tending to open up the adjacent fine district and rendering large tracts of land at once available for settlement. The attention of the Government should undoubtedly be at once called to this matter, with a view of inducing them not alone to make a further grant in order to complete so important a line of communication, but also of subsidising a mail line of coaches between here and Wairoa, as thereby they would effect the opening up of some 100,000 acres of Crown land, which should then be thrown open for free selection in order to induce speedy sttlement. Were such enlightened policy more generally followed out, we cannot help thinking that our progress would be far more rapid than it is at present. We trust that the importance of the subject will meet with that attention which it undoubtedly merits, and that our Council will do all they possibly can towards bringing about the desired result.