The Daily News. MONDAY, APRIL 14, 1919. BACK BLOCKS HARDSHIPS.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 April 1919, Page 4

The Daily News. MONDAY, APRIL 14, 1919. BACK BLOCKS HARDSHIPS.

The Ministerial visit to the hinterland of faranaki, away back from "Whangamomona, afforded the settlers an opportunity of giving the representatives of the Government an object lesson on the spot as to what these pioneers have had to endure through the default of the previous Governments in not providing roads to Crown lands that have been opened up for mariy years and are still roadless. The recitals of these heroic, but trustful men was such as to move hearts i of stone, and as Sir "Wm. Praser admitted that he knew the stories were only too true, their indictment of the Government may be taken as fully proved. It is all very* well for the Minister to add insult to injury by blaming the people "to a certain extent" for brooking no delay in having the lands thrown open, but that excuse is no answer to the fact that the Government opened and disposed of these lands well knowing that without roads the men who had the land hunger would have to suffer such hardships and handicaps that no man—civilised or otherwise —should be expected to .undergo. The land was taken up it inflated prices on the faith that roads would be provided as shown on the plans issued by the Lands Department. One settler, only ten miles from Whangamomona, stat ed it cost him £1 a bale to get Ids wool carted, because it had to be packed out in sacks and rebaled. Another speaker detailed how\he had only had, for eighteen years, a six-foot track—four feet wide and two deep—and that many of the settlers went into the bush, blazed a track, packed their tent, camp oven, tools and food on their backs and proceeded to improve their sections. "What that means only those who have undergone the ordeal can know, but it is what all the settlers had to do twenty or thirty years ago. The Government took care to collect the rents and insist on improvements, but left the reading problem severely alone. All that the settlers got by persistent appeals was promises, and, as one settler remarked, if promises would have made the loads they would have existed long ago. After a while the sixfoot bridle track came, and though le,d to believe this was only a temporary means of aeeess, nothing further was done. The remark made that what was wanted was a roading policy went to the cmx of the whole matter. The Government of the Dominion has never troubled itself about such a policy. Judging from Sir Wm. Fraser's reply it would seem that the departmental view was that if men were foolish enough to go into the roadless back blocks, to carve out a home and help to develop the resources of the country they must put up with the consequences. That is what these men did, only those who could not stand the strain had to throw up their holdings, often losing their hard-earn ed all and their health into the bargain. But the women folk who braved the terrible conditions of the roadless hinterland certainly deserved consideration, and if only for their sakes some roading policy should have been devised, yet not » even the plight of these heroines moved the Government to action—and, let it not be forgotten, the settlers were bound to reside on their holdings, besides pa/ing rent ( and making at least the stipulated . | improvements. In the face of all .! this callousness On the part of the r J Government the Minister said [ i "the Government had done its , best,'' If the best is a cipher, one . cannot help wondering what the , j worst can be. We have only to ■ compare the treatment meted out by the Government to these stirl"iing men of grit with that of organ-

ised labor whose demands coerce the Government into action. The Government has the settlers at its mercy, but the unionists hold the whip over the Government. There is something grievously wrong when such a state of affairs is tolerated by the community. Eoads, said one speaker at the banquet to the Ministers, would break down the isolation of the tackblocks, which he did not know how the women could stand. They had no recreation and not even the prospect of meeting other women for months at a time, while the cost of living is cruelly oppressive. The horrors attendant on sickness when the sufferer had to be carried out over a rough bridle track may well be imagined. Twenty years on a section served cnly by a six-foot track that for the best part of the year is a sea of mud, is more than any settler should be called upon to endure. Tt is useless for the Minister to harp on the shortage o!! labor. These roads should have been made when labor was plentiful and the Ministry withheld the money for the work. The only remark made by the Minister that is worthy of approbation was that engineers should be sent to lay off the roads and not surveyors. The result of the Ministerial visit has been, another sheaf of promises. these are worth can be judged by past experiences. The set tiers want roads and if, as one speaker remarked, these cannot be provided, "it is either a case of the settlers getting out, or the Government doing ditto."