THE MAIN HIGHWAY.

Shannon News, 11 July 1924, Page 4

THE MAIN HIGHWAY.

HOW IT WAS CONSTRUCTED. AN HISTORICAL SURVEY. t> ■IE Following is the concluding article relating to the original roading of toe Horowhenua County. The series has placed on record in proper sequence a great many of the events leading to the estui> lishmem oi local government on this coast and present the vivid contrast between tin© conditions p"..\«.ilu?g m the-, eighties and those oi to-day.

TOKOMARU-SHANNON ROAD. So far nothing had-, been done about this.road, but early, in 1887 the County Engineer, Mr.Climie, woo Ud. been engaged during this time, was Instructed no visit Tokomaru and Shannon and report as to which ot the wad lines laid off by the Railway Company should be adopted as a county road, taking into s consideration the necessity of connecting such roads with the Foxton-Otaki road somewhere near Heatherlea. It was not until 1889 however, when a loan of £6QOO was raised, that tenders' were called for the work. South from Shannon the road was formed to the Buckley road, where it encountered a blocic of 3000 acres held by the Koputaroa chieftain, Ihakara Tukumaru, which extended from there ! to thu. bottom of the Ihakara Hill, at the boundary of Mr Glassford's farm. It was not until 1894 that the bush was cut along this portion of the route and another decade before the construction was commenced. - MAIN ROAD HELD UP. « In .the< meantime the County had failed to raise the proposed loan of £12,000, and although one or two small contracts were let where absolutely (necessary to traffic, nothing more was done until 1888 when it was decided to raise separate riding loans for the construction of the main road tlhrough the length of the riding concerned. In February of that year it was decided to raise a loan of £6OOO for the work in the Wirokino Riding, which loan was duly carried, a > rate of 7-16 d being struck'to cover the amount andOtaki followed with-a loan of £5000., arid, a rate of-si-Bd.. TE HORO 1 STANDS OUT.

The Tte Horo riding, out oi th,e whole county, stood 1 out from the general of lorming the. main road : out of : loan ; money, .basing their objection on a ; matter of principle. The ratepayers in that, riding held that the road would nun. through four to flvtt miles, of uative. land from which, rates could not be. collected and secondly, that through the Government's policy of handing over |lairge biocKs of land to the Railway Company (the total area handed'over along the s wthole route was 225,000 acres, although . only a proportion was" in the Horowhenua County), the County was deprived of tfte thirds due from Government iands, thereby losing considerable, revenue. When Mr H. J. Richards,. from whom our information on this point was obtained, joined the County in 1893, ihe had figures compiled relating to-this loss of-revenue. The total , rates paid on the Company's incluiding.. the railway fine,was £6.13 16s 7d,, ? wihilst it was estimated that the- thirds which would- tiav.e, been available had. the property, sold, to settlers by the Government,,, would.liave-paid theinterest on the whole of- the-County's loans at that date, amounting to £59,000. \ Under the circumstances the representatives of the Te Horo riding claimed-that the; • Government should- build the - road and bridges through their district. This.attitude, as may be.expected; held up - the work in. ■ ■ the : southern riding .very considerably. The whole of the old road route surveyed by Mr Morgan Carkeek had been taken by the Railway- from Waikanae to Qtaki and the work had to be commenced from, the bginning. It was only after Mr Richards' joined the County in 1893 that a start was made witfli the work,, a route being surveyed on the vseaward side ot> the= railway line, where the present road now rums, as far as Hadfield's Siding, at the 41-mile peg. From there it crossed the line and followed along the foothills to Waikanae, this route being later abandoned as impracticable after, the bush had been felled and the logs cleared off the line. It was then decided to■. take the road down through the swamp in its present location. COSTLY. COMPENSATION.

Although, under the Public. Works Act local, bodies 'bad ; been-authorised to take up to 5 per cent, 'of any holding-,- Native or -European, without compensation, lor" roading purposes, the Horowhenua- County paid one costly piece of compensation at least, tor a right of way. When the, road reached Wi parata's land at Waikanae the suryeyed .route • for the chain road was found to run through that gentleman's garden, necessitating the inclusion of l-sth of an acre in the required width. After long debate as to the advisability or otherwise of reducing the width of the road to half chain at this spot so' as to avoid taking: the garden plot, and a Maori (Land Court case, finally the land was taken and £IOO paid in compensation, a price which leaves no suspicion that the unwary Native did not receive a fair price for his land. CONDITION OF COUNTY. ROAD. During this time the growing inland settlement, small aa it was, necessitated the use of the old County road where cleared, which, as it was, no more than} a chain wide track cut through the bush, promptly retaliated against the burden imposed on it. A minute of the meeting of December, 1887, calling tenders for clearing thistles from County roads, gives an idea of their state in summer and in winter they were one long quagmire where the bullocks drays swam up to the axles through : mud and then crashed into and bumped over tifcte stumps, which had been cut level with the ground. As a matter of fact, however;, practically

all goods ware carried on pack-horses during: the winter months. At this time John Haryey was paid lQs per month for keeping the ford at Otaki marked out worn poles and George .Beatty was paid 2t*s per month tor the same service in respect of the vJlldU UOaiiU^. WORK REALLY BEGINS. In 16a6 Hie work, of formuig the road as a comprehensive scheme, began, hut it must not he imagined that contracts were Jet for the whole 01 one iengiu ai une ana m<s same time. The worst portions were first tackled, the object of the County being to provide a negotiable road as soon as possible. Wherever the route was particularly nad thereto!e, a contract was let, one of the hist being num. ua*u to the Kuku along the heavy damp flats in that locality. Side cuttings where necessary were maue and uuungs put in m the bad gullies, but wiherever a- piece ol high■uad eompaiuiively dry country was encountered along the route, and gave-promise of carrying traffic mote or lotto, satisfactorily, it was leit to the last. For this reason the piece of road from Levin to Ohau was one of the last constructed, with tiie exception always of tne lhakara portion. The road from Queen street to the Levin Railway Station then situated where Bartholomew's lirst mul stood on ■ the Avenue Road, was made in 1888 and metalled in wau, being, one of -ike first portions ot the ruad uone, the metal; incidentally being taken from the pit where tne present town hall is being buiii, \ -m remainder of Oxford street vvhicii had been felled in 1888 was still the usual ohain wide lire through the bush from the centre oi wnich tne logs ' and stumps had been remdveu and remained so for some time alter-, wards. ... BIRTH OF LEVIN TOWNSHIP.

As a digression it ma, y. De oi iu " terest to note that the first piece ox ."bush felled in what is now the Levin business area was cut in 18UU on the section known as-, the Leu Block at the north-western intersection oi' Queen and Oxford streets, by Mr. Henry Bevan, of Maoakau, wno built a buteiher's shop oh the site, packing the meat through ir-om Manakau on pack horses. Mr Petersen, a worker on the Manawatu railway, had previously built the first house opposite tne present public library, but this was erected on the extremity oj old Weraroa clearing. The cottage alongside the Pow,er Board's offices and occupied by the, VTelegiraph lineisinein was the third .building in Levin, being built by Mr Rod McDonald as.a general store. , TE HORO'S POLICY JUSTIFIED. , Despite strong pressure from those ,who-wished to have the road put .through, Te Horo persisted in their -attitude' and eventually; although it meant a delay of several years in ,the commencement of tihe work, received Governmental acknowledgement of their claim, the whole oi the money lor the road, and later lor the bridges, in this riding, being obtained as grants from tne Government. , FIRST TE HORO CONTRACTS.

<i In 1893, the first contract for ior.mation was let in the Te Horo Riding, this being the portion from the present Otaki .bridge to the Te Horo railway station! At the same time a contract for the metalling; of 5 chains o| road between the two railway gates was opened for tender. • The -.Government grant now having been robtained, the work proceeded rapidly ibut it was not until 1905 that the 'metalling was completed, this date marking the completion, of the metalding of the main roads of the County the work having been done on the same principle as the construction oi the road, namely, the worst portions being done first. As 1 may be expected it did not proceed without many heaxMmmings and local jealousies, every settler along the route being -.firmiy convinced that his portion .was the worst in the county and the most deserving of immediate attention. V BUILDING OF BRIDGES. • With the completion of the road tJhe County was at liberty to turn its attention to what became, with every year, a- more pressing need, the •bridging of the various rivers , and 'streams along its length. During the years when the roading was in progress, punts on the Manawatu * at Wirokino and Shannon had taken the .traffic from Foxton southwards into the Horowhenua County, whilst," as ; has been mentioned earlier, men were paid at the Qtaki and Ohau rivers to keep the constantly shifting ..fords-mainked out with poles. Every -flood- on these two rivers meant the holding up of traffic for a longer or shorter- period and with the increasing communication between the different portions of the County consequent on the improved roads, this state of affairs became unbearable. THE OHAU LOW-LEVEL BRIDGE.

The first bridge in the County was a low-level structure oyer the Ohau river, built in the late 90's. This bridge was constructed, to a certain extent, as an experiment, the Hon John McKenzie, then Minister of Lands, being desirous of ascertaining if this type of bridge was suitable, for a swift-flowing river such as the Ohau. The bridge as constructed cost £4OO, of which the Government supplied £*2so and the County £l5O, and was of one span, starting at the level of the-gravel on one side, crossing the river a few feet only above normal water level.and ending again at the gravel on the further side, the theory being that flood-waters should flow over it.

beautifully simple as the theory was, it did not work out in practice. The water scoured>round the end of the bridge where it terminated at the gravel at either, end, so that the ends were suspended and also scoured round the piles in the river bed •until they were actually floating at times, whilst an accumulation of logs and debris piled ; up against the structure, threatening to carry it away and necessitating! their removal after every flood. The bridge, some ,Gf the piles of which may still be seen in- tbe river bed, was actually in satisfactory use for only twelve months. It was later lengthened by two further spans on the Otaki end, but finally it was recognised that.the