WAITOA RIDING. OHINEMURI COUNTY. (To the Editor).

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 315, 10 November 1888, Page 2

WAITOA RIDING. OHINEMURI COUNTY. (To the Editor).

Sir, — At the last meeting of the Ohinemuri County Council an application was received from the Waitoa ratepayers for a road to connect the system of roads on the Auckland Agricultural Co.'s estate with the Lower Waitoa and Te Aroha roads 5 the estimated cost of which was £80 ; but all that was granted" by Council was £50, which sum is quite inadequate, as it will only suffice to do a little over half the road, and leave the end in a swamp, I am informed that during the discussion that took place Cr Quinn stated that the road was useless, that he knew the country, and that to gat to it you had to go through four ploughed paddocks, and in winter the horses had to wade up to the saddle flaps. This is certainly not the case, and any person to make such a statement must be either greatly mistaken with regard to the locality of the road, orintentionally state that which is not true. There are certainly two padiocks in crop where it joins the Auckland Agricultural Co. estate, but that is all the more reason a road is wanted to get the grain away. The said estate pays £50 in rates every year, and lias not had a penny of money from the Council. This very company have also expended little less than £1000 on roads and bridges within the Ohinemuri County boundaries ; the other end of the road teiminates on a dry fern ridge, which connects it with the extension of the Lower Waitoa main road, which was formed byStanley and party about two years ago. It is to be hoped that the " honourable gentleman " will be a little better informed the next time he comes to report on a country he knows nothing about. The road is the only public outlet for Messrs Strange and Scott, the former pays £30 a year in rates, and for years has been obliged, in conjunction with a neighbour, to maintain from four to six miles of road at their own expense. If this is what we are to expect from our local governing body there must be something radically wrong. Some members of the Ohinemuri County Council seem to think that all they have to do is to strike rates and get all the money they can for the goldfields. They do not caro ; it makes but few shillings difference to them, and apparently they do not trouble about those who have to pay as much in rates by themselves, as two of the Goldfielde Hidings together. Oh, no!Allthey want is money to spend their own way. — I am, &c, A Sufferer. Waitoa, Nov. Bth 1888,