HELP FOR BACKBLOCKS.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 March 1922, Page 4

HELP FOR BACKBLOCKS.

The large and representative meeting at New Plymouth on Thursday evening, called by the Chamber of Commerce to consider proposals to help the backblocks, may be taken as evidence o£ a real desire on the part of New Plymouth’s commercial community to interest themselves in the welfare of the settlers of the backblocks. This is a very encouraging sign, for it must be acknowledged that in the past the town as a whole has not identified itself as prominently as it might have done with the interests of the backblocks in the vital matter of securing road and"rail communication for the hinterland. This indifference was due probably to a lack of appreciation of what the linking up of the backblocks with the settled districts meant to the chief town and port. If the two tours made by the Chamber of Commerce have done nothing else they certainly have dispelled this ignorance and shown the great possibilities of the back country when roads and railways are constructed. Now it is recognised that if Taranaki is to develop and progress the towns in the settled districts must put in all their weight with the back country settlers in their efforts to secure road arid- rail communication. ' Only by concerted and persistent efforts can progress be made, and it is probable that for lack of such efforts in the past the back districts, and the province as a whole, have suffered appreciably. The Chamber of Commerce submitted a policy to Thursday’s meeting which is as

simple as it is practicable. It wisely recognises that nothing is to be gained at this stage from advocating proceeding with the Tahora railway in the face of the Government’s declared policy of suspending ■work and concentrating on the other end. So it is asking the Government to connect Tahora by a good metalled road through the Tangarakau Gorge with - the Ohura. The work is neither a costly nor difficult one, and it is hard to see how the Government can refuse to extend its help, especially when the construction of the road would link up the railways and tend to make the line profitable. The prosecution of the Lower Awakino Road, doing away with the tragic Taumatsmaire Hill, is another vital work that the chamber proposes to.press for. It has been shown that with more men and machinery this important link between Taranaki and Auckland can be completed inside a year. Then there is the bridging of the Mokau, a work that ought to have been put in hand years ago if the present and past Governments had but realised their duty and what, the bridge and the improvement of the road really meant. The other work to be pushed is the metalling of the road from Mt. Messenger to Awakino, which has never been more than a fine weather one. The coastal district has been longsuffering in the matter of communications, but the time has arrived when active efforts should be made to provide the district with the facilities to which it is entitled, and the absence of which in the past has caused loss and inconvenience, not only to the settlers chiefly concerned, but to the whole of the island. The providing of these communications, it must be borne in mind, is a matter of national as well as of provincial importance, and there should be little difficulty in convincing the Prime Minister and the Minister for Public Works, who are to be invited to visit the districts and see these great needs for themselves, that the interests of the Dominion, no less than those of the province, demand that they be taken in hand at once and energetically pushed forward to completion. The Taranaki Chamber has but discharged a duty it owes to the province in taking a lead in this important matter and formulating a definite and attainable policy, and there can be no doubt it will receive the support of the other districts in equal measure to that accorded it by the New Plymouth cit Lens on Thursday evening.