The Daily News SATURDAY, MAY 6, 1922. BACK-BLOCKS HARDSHIPS.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 May 1922, Page 4

The Daily News SATURDAY, MAY 6, 1922. BACK-BLOCKS HARDSHIPS.

Ministers—and others—are in the habit of laying great stress on the progress and financial soundness of the Dominion, but unless they are compelled to face the ugly facts connected with the callous neglect of the settlers in the backblocks they appear to ignore the existence of long-standing and patiently endured hardships. When the settlers took up land “out back” in order to make, a living, and incidentally add to the production of the country, they knew they would have to face all the hardships of pioneering, but they expected at least that the time would not be long before they were given facilities of ingress and egress for themselves, their dependents, their requirements, and their produce. Instead of this they practically find themselves ent. off from the towns and civilisation for a considerable portion of the year, and compelled tp live in a state of isolation—no roads and no bridges—while money is spent on all sorts of frills that are attendant on the self-glorification of the authorities and the maintenance of enormous staffs of officials. If two or three of the Ministers, with their departmental heads, wore banished for three months or so to various backblocks districts and had to undergo the shocking experiences of the settlers, it would not be long—if they the ideal —before the Jot of these settlers would be much improved. We talk of foreign oppression and tyranny with strong feelings of loathing, but what can be said of a Government which sends men. women and children out into the wilderness of the baekbloeks of New Zealand, and calmly leaves them to carry on without the means of access other than bridle traeks deep in mud and fording rivers that are often too dangerously swollen to negotiate? These settlers are not scapegoats; they are of the type that has made the Dominion what it is,, yet they are forced to either give up their pioneering work and swell the ranks of the unemployed, or endure with what fortitude they possess the cruel inaction of a Government whose duty it is to provide the transport facilities for its lessees, instead of penalising them heavily for their courage and enterprise in developing the country. It is not surprising that the settlers in the Tahumaroa district should have recently voiced their grievances to the member for Stratford in the hope of the Government being induced to provide access facilities; and there is no question that the roading and bridging of the baekbloeks should no longer be delayed, for to postpone this work any longer would he wilful neglect of an imperative duty. There is much force in the contention that a thorough and systematic search of road metal should be undertaken and vigorously pursued, for that is the crux of the whole roading problem outside bridge work. Equally convincing is the claim that the Government reserves should .either be

utilised or fenced to prevent their being'merely cover for wild pigs and nurseries of noxious weeds and other pests. There is a principle at stake in this matter of easing the burdens of the baekbloeks settlers—the men on the land —for whom so much sympathy has been expressed and so little done. The overlapping of the Land Boards and the Public Works Department favors a policy of inaction. The Government and the public bodies concerned should regard as an imperative duty the provision of usable roads. It is a crying shame that these sturdy settlers should be so badly treated, and it is to be hoped that effective steps will be taken to put an end to the deplorable state of affairs that exists. Primarily the Government is responsible, and it is to the Government the public look to rectify grievances that have existed far too long already. What is needed is action, not promises or excuses. There may be no limelight glory attaching to the performance of this manifest duty, but until it is performed the neglect is a blot on the good name of the Dominion.