ROADS TO BACKBLOCKS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 114, 25 February 1936, Page 3

ROADS TO BACKBLOCKS

TO HAVE FIRST ATTENTION. REPAIRING OF FLOOD DAMAGE. (Per Press Association.) ELTHAM, February 24. “Tar-sealed roads and the like have to take second place until the wants of the men in the baekblocks have been attended to,” said the Minister for Public Works (the lion. R. Semple) during his reply to several deputations from local bodies at Eltliam to-day. “Of primary consideration,” lie added, “are the crying needs oi the back country settlers, many of whom have to take a chance and swim rivers to reach civilisation.” The Minister added that the Oo\ernment’s generous offers of assistance to stricken areas could not be taken as a precedent to be applied to normal times and normal requirements. He emphasised particularly that State assistance was only to meet extraordinary flood damage where settlers had lost communication with their maikots and the outside world. New Zealand would have to redistribute its population from the cities to the- country, but before this could be done tlie Government must give reasonable access to those settlers who had been sent out to the back country, and who were in many cases virtually isolated. This would give encouragement to others to go on the land.