THE TOLL OF THE FOREST

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10624, 1 May 1912, Page 5

THE TOLL OF THE FOREST

HEROES AND HEROINES

Mr James Mackenzie, the newly-ap pointed Surveyor-General, gave' expression on. Monday night to a strong plea for tho' back blocks' ,'i The .occasion, was a, presentation to M<* Mackenzie, and in expressing his thanks he permitted himself a very interesting digression. Apologising for alluding to what might*be called a question. of policy, he said that the great cry of tlie backblocks .settlers, .among whom he had moved so long, was ,for roads. should be glad," continued Mr Mackenzie, "to see railway-maTritig . havo a, rest for a. year or two, and let the money be devoted, to making roads, and giving men who have not so much as a pig track access'to their lajidl' ,We run through- to Auckland. in ' .'tho express, but there are men whose farms are away back beyond 20 miles of mud tracks, and no roads'at all, and they cannot get access to the [railway. Let them have at least .some-, sort of access —these pioneers, the heroes and heroines of . the back-blocte. If we only knew the toll of the forest, and what these people have to contend with! Sick children carried over the mountain tops' on the fathers' and mothers' backs before they can get to aid of any kind, women going into the settlements to perform the highest; duty of womanhood, and then, rather than go iback to the isolation of tho I forest, committing suicide—those aw the sort of things that you ran against not once or twice, but dozens of times, in your travels. I don't"know.of aii.ythink more necessary than to help in., getting roads into tho back-blocks." — Dominion.