The Daily News FRIDAY, APRIL 5. OUR BACKBLOCKS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 5 April 1907, Page 2

The Daily News FRIDAY, APRIL 5. OUR BACKBLOCKS.

I lie altitude winch hi? jruiij-rn n ' is taking up in regard to 'be East Road ami the .Stratford Comity Council .. is hard to understand. Pome time ago ' be threatened to band over the Hast ami J Ihe cimfiguous roads ill their present (viTii'ili'ai to the County Council for coin- * pletion. and now Mr. llall-loncs intimates tbat bis ''ill is going to be done. In yosterdavV issue we published a I statement made by the Acting-Premier , in Wellington the other day on the sub- 1 ji'i-t. ;n tiie course of which he said: , '"Whv should Hie people of Wellington '. be called upon lo pay towards Hie cost , of maintaining a road which has been , formed and several iniies metalled hy , the Stale, and this, too, when the local ] builies are dra .vine, rates from the properties iihi-.C.in;: on that road?' - Mr. Hali-iciios - breadth of vision and know- ■ led'-e of the facts of the case cannot . lie very considera'ole. The backldockors i j might.' with more juslilication, reply: i •■\\"hv should we be called upon to pay ; towa'rds the huge and expensive executive departmental buildings in Wellington and elsewhere, and contribute towards the cost of Ministerial wanderings about the country, when we haven't airv of the decencies of civilisation, not even a passable road?" And the liaek-block.-rs might also ask, with equal justification, "Why should the Government lead us to believe when we took up our bush section that in a short time we would lie civen means of egress and ingress, and then, after muddling things rhdit and left, abandon us, and violate its contract with us":" The ActingPremier said nothing about metalling the road. It is one thing, as we all know

so well ill Tarnnaki, to "form" a road, iiml another tiling to "metal" a rosul. ) Tlie (iovcrnmont has "nnule" (lie road only to a very limited extent. Were tile | road metalled and ]iro])erly made—as it ought, to lie anil should have been, considering tlie pile of money spent—no objection' could lie taken to the proposal to vest the road in the local body. Tli.it would be a. proper proceeding. If a private person subdivides liis property, the Slate takes good care that proper loading facilities are provided, and ;f tlie enforcement of this provision is necessary in a. private person's case, it is quite as necessary—indeed, more necessary—for the Government to provide proper roading of the land it throws open for settlement. The settlers of the backhlocks have been victimised badlv by the Coveriiinent. Tliey took . up the laud oil the promise that they would lie given decent roads. _ \ears have g .lie bv, and even the arterial roau has not been metalled, while in regard , to the bv-roads little has been done except that which the settlers have themselves undertaken. It is a very unsatisfactory slate of affairs, and is no credit U the (lovernment or Mr. llall-loii'-'s The latter, in the statement referred to, said, that, "so far as the statements regarding loading are roncerned, it is evidently not understood that, the Olmra road, from Stratford to WhangamonicHia. runs practically the whole "way through freehold property, - on which" there is no loading. .

There is no loading whatever for main road purposes, the only loading imposed being that for by-roads." - 111 saying this, Mr. llall-.lones was trying to cloud the true issue. What, we would ask him, is the u-e of the side-roads if there is no outlet—no arterial road? What would be the use of the veins of a man's body if there were no main arteries to feed them t Whether the sections on the main road were loaded or not does not affect the position oneiota, and no one should know this fact better than the Acting-I'remier. The securing of accessible roads for our back country is one of the most important questions, if not the most important question, confronting Taranaki at the present time, and the people of the province should resist bv every means in their power any proposal to block settlement, o; injure our struggling backblock pioneers, deserving men and women who have already been treated in a maanev nothing short of scandalous.