CORRESPONDENCE. NEWCASTLE HIGHWAY MATTERS.

Waikato Times, Volume XVII, Issue 1427, 25 August 1881, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE. NEWCASTLE HIGHWAY MATTERS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib,— Will you, through the medium of your valuable journal, allow me to publish my views on a subject which is just now engaging the attention of the settlers and trustees of the Newcastle district. Some settlers, and the writer is one of them, think a large landowner has no more right to the lands of the Crown in the district than a small land-owner, and therefore the Board should not grant any privilege to one settler more than another in the depasturing cattle, on what is termed the run. The system in the past has been to allow five head to every fifty acres owned, giving a monopoly to the large land-owner. If we apply this, monopolising principle to other public property —our railways for instance— it? mconsia-

tency will appear at once. I hold that it would be just as reasonable to limit a settler's use of the railway as his use of the public run. This district has had some trouble in getting one of the heads, in the shape of proxy-voting, off this apocalyptic dragon, and an attempt will be made to decapitate this monopoly also. As our Road Board is more approachable now than in the past, I venture to throw out a suggestion with regard to our local public works. I conceive that if specifications for public works were published in the local journal, the outlay would be more than recovered by the advantage gained by putting a copy of the specification in the hand of each subscriber. This would facilitate healthy criticism of works being carried on, and compacts or rings between contractors and engineers would be more dangerous. For instance, a taxpayer going along a road with a paper containing a specification, and seeing a ditch that should be five feet deep, left at only one foot deep, it would rouse his suspicion of foul play. He comes to a bridge or culvert where the specification says the water is to be four feet below the bridge, and sees it only eighteen inches below, and shakes his head. I say no more ; the advantage of such a system must recommend itself. — I am, &c, Whatawhata. Whatawhata, August 23, 1881.