OHINEMURI

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2658, 25 July 1889, Page 2

OHINEMURI

K.M. Count'.—Mr H. W. Nnrthcroft, R.M., held the usual monthly R.M. Court at Paeroa on Monday last. The following cases were heard and disposed of:—Phillips and Son v. George (Te Aroha). Judgment summons, £o IDs. Order made to pay in one month or 30 day's imprisonment.— Boden v. Edwards, claim 15s, wages. Judgment for Is 7d, costs os.—William Dodd was cKarged with non-payment of costs in a criminal information which defendant laid in April last against W. Carter for stealing, &c. This information had been dismissed with costs £12 against Dodd. A distress warrant had been issued and no effects returned. The Court sentenced Dodd to two months' hard labour in Mount Eden.

Thk Roads.—The roads in the goldfields are now worse than they ever were. After thirteen years of the much vaunted county system, it will scarcely bo believed that on the main road near Waihi a dray was completely buried up to the guard iron, and four horses failed to heave it out. The old log culverts are caving in in all directions, and to a person who does not know the road intimately, a rido to Waihi after dark certainly means serious accidents. How the coachdriver manages to keep time deponent sayetli not. But for the presence of mind and experience of the present driver, Mr Stonehill, serious casualty would have happened only very recently, There is altogether too much of the storekeeping element in not only the Ohinemuri, but nearly all country districts. Democracy is a very pretty sentiment, (which as Carlylo says. "is better than nothing, but also worse than nothing,") but a. little wholesome autocracy in the management of local affairs would be better for the country. Certainly representation of the people, by the people, as at present, is a delusion. Log-rolling jobbery and corruption are the flies in the ointment. How many ainnte inglorious V. C. Deans, the caverns of local politics shelter, may be one day discovered and their nefarious schemes stayed, but so long as the present system of local government holds good, just so long will there be more hard cash sunk in jobbery, humbug roads, &c, &c, than ever was stolon by clerks and treasurers. Only in the cases where a council, as a whole, are responsible for misdeeds, these misdeeds are stretched over a gamut of individual councillors, as a pianoforte tuner stretches the imperfection of tune over the whole key board. Each individual councillor can easily make himself out a blameless character, but the stubborn fact remains that misdeeds have been done, are being done, providing the lr.illenium docs not intervene, will continue to be done until such laws are written off the New Zealand Statute Book.