THE REASON WHY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 5 March 1913, Page 4

THE REASON WHY.

The Dunedin Star, one of the mnst intelligent and unbiased of the Opposition journals, gives a rational excuse for the migration of settlers from the baekblocks when it says:— "Although a quarter of a century lias elapsed since the settler* were induced to take up the bush country the amount of metalled roads complete-! in the settlements is very trifling. Roads have been formed, but they are nearly all summer roads —available for wheel traffic for three months in the year, and the rest of the time up to the horses knees in mud. People with residences many miles from a railway or township, provided only with roads of this description, suffered from disadvantages and discomforts, fitich as few outside their ranks can properly realise. >Xo mails, no newspapers, deprived of social intercourse, beyond the reach of aid in case, of illness or accident, unable to obtain supplies of food, clothing, or medicine, no matter how urgently required, they led. for weeks and (months k miserable existence. Worse than all, those who had families had the unspeakable mortification of .seeing their children growing up either poorly educated or virtually not educated at all. For liow could, they attend school with the road,s in the condition described? Is it. then, surprising that after waiting for years in the hope that passable roads would be made, 'finding themselves isolated and out off from the ordinary comforts of • life, they were glad to sell out and quit their homesteads directly a reasonable offer was made?"