The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1918 TAIHAPE NOT INTERESTED.

Taihape Daily Times, 9 December 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1918 TAIHAPE NOT INTERESTED.

(With which is Incorporated Th<» Taihape Pout Lad Wateranno News).

The Public Works Estimates brought down last week end by the Hon. Sir W. Fr-aser, Minister' of Public Works are ; a. trifle more pretentious than those of i last year. It is by no means what the country had been led to expect by Ministerial talk about the huge and comprehensive scheme for public works that was to be inaugurated on the termination of the war, but, the Minister is not quite sure whether his Department will be called upon to do : much towards returning soldiers to | civil life. These annual estimates are largely a snare and a delusion, they ; should not be so of course, but that is really what they have developed into. Sums are placed and are seriously voted which are never spent, and it is very doubtful, indeed whether it was ever meant that they should be spent. Taihape will not be disappointed in that respect for the town is not interested very much in what the Ministerial effort has brought forth. There is certainly an insignificant vote, or rather two very pniall votes for a road from Taihape to Ruanui, via Mataroa, this fact is significant enough, however. The total of the two amounts is £1250; for that portion from Taihape to Mataroa £750 is required, and on that from Mataroa to Ruanui £SOO is set down. It may be mentioned that in last year's estimates £250 was voted for the .TaihapeMataroa Road, but it does not appear to Have been spent. Settlers in this district have some right to know how it is even such small matters as £250 are not lifted and utilised; it may be, of course, the sum is altogether inadequate for the work it was voted for. From the Minister's point of view the Taihape district neither stands in need of, roads or bridges, or even an old time bridle track to enable settlers in its hinterland to have decent access to their holdings; Ruanui is the only locality that it is desirous to link up with the town by a good road, and £1250 have accordingly been placed on the estimates so that Ruanui settlers may have a good can communication. It will be remembered that a few years ago £SOO was voted for approaches to a proposed bridge over the Rangitikei river, connecting this district with Hawke's Bay, which the Rangitikei County Council did not apply for, and it was not spent, despite the fact that a similar amount was voted and spent by the Hawke's Bay people for the approach on their side of the river. Since then, however, the Maoris of this territory have generously given to the Government some 50,000 .acres of virgin land for soldier settlement, and it is generally understood that there was an incidental understanding between the Government and the Maoris that the bridge at this particular place should be constructed and a good road made so that fencing, other material and stock might be got in and produce got out. Evidently this promise is another of the Ministerial many which are relegated to the by-and-by, perhaps never, class. It certainly is passing strange that settlers in this huge district should not be in need of either roads or bridges or any other means of access and communication between their settlements and the town from which they draw their supplies. ' If they have any such needs and have relied upon the Minister of Public Works to do the fair thing by them, they must bo desperately disappointed, for they could not have been given less consideration. In public works the town seems to have a sufficiency for all purposes; it neither stands in need of police station, post office, railway conveniences, or anything else, but in this connection a rather far-seeing settler, who has considerable political experience, has remarked that no money will be forthcoming in this district for opening up land for settlement; for improving settlement; for making roads and building 1 bridges to increase settlement and, sequentially, production, as it would entail further expenditure for enlarging post and telegraph and telephone offices, as well as for making considerable additions to the railway station, both of which services are already quite inadequate for the work there is to do, and we arc not at all sure there is not a considerable substratum of truth in this statement of the case; anyway no loaves or fishes have come this way, and settlers have nothing to expect. It is undeniable that the Government's policy is stripping the outlying districts of

settlers; land has been aggregated till schools in various localities, have had to be closed, and men,, with large families are compelled to leave their farms to managers, or to other chances while they locate themselves in Taihape. We <io appeal to the Government to realise what is happening for it is positively searching for disaster to go on building homesteads and schools with' public and private wealth, that are in a few years to be destined to become unused and to fall into decay, by pursuing a policy that forces land-owners to reside in towns because it is only by so doing their families can reach public and other schools. While there are hundreds of thousands of acres of easiest worked, and most highly productive land awaiting settlement in this district, not a shilling is voted for the purpose. Settlers who have braved the backblocks for quarter of a century, now only five or six miles from Taihapo, are refused mail conveniences, and the}*" still have to come into town for mails or go without them, which constitutes another cause why farmers are buying town houses and are coming to live therein. Is it not plain that something is wrong somewhere? What is it, where is it; where can the trouble be looked for but in a disastrous land policy and in the annual estimates and votes made by the various governing Departments? Thirty years ago local political associations would discuss and criticise the annual estimates with as deep an interest as they were discussed and criticised in Parliament, often much more intelligently, but neither Parliament or local associations seem to care or trouble about what the Minister in Charge does now-a-days. The estimates before us constitutes a document which is of little interest to anybody if they do not live in either the South Island or the Auckland district. Party politics have been closeted during the existence of the National Government, and this year's estimates have —cannot have —no party significance. That Taihape has no interest in the Estimates is, then, largely the peoples own fault; they have one of the largest, most highly productive territories in the country to develop, but so long as they find no occasion to urge and fight for progress they must take a back seat to those who do. There are votes galore on the estimates for oldsettled territories from Wellington to Marton, and for newer settled localities from Ohakune to North of Auckland, but the Minister has dead forgotten there exists any country between Kiwitea 1 and Ohakune, not forgetting that road to Euanui. To tvade through the votes for roads, bridges and other public works for Whangarei, Taumarunui, Gisborne and districts in the South Island makes Taihape *s mouth water, but there seems no chance this year of abating this district's public works famine. Its people may go onpaying their taxes and just wait for a more just distribution.