ROADS! ROADS!

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 168, 18 July 1910, Page 3

ROADS ! ROADS!

HARDSHIPS IN THE BACEBLOCKa. (Br Ttteg—ph.— Reporter.) WELLLXGTOX, &turday. .J 01 *' ™ ads > *°**s: give as xoads!" say* a bush settler in North TaranakL ™ a letter to Mr. W. T. Jeiiiiimfor TaumarunuL .Despite. «u3theGoern- Tment says.-he remarks thrt he can only ' ™ff the len of roads made. Th e lue js anything but attractive to our wives and children," he adds. Every time a settler's wife is anticipating motherhood, especially in the winter, the trouble and expense of goin«» out to get proper medical attendance, and tie enforced separation that it entails between a man and his wife and children, are enough to make most men and women think with dread of such an event lou must make the country life moattractive," the settler goes on to say, "to the rising generation," and he suggests increased telephonic communication and regular countryside delivery of mails." "The Government is too fond of making everything J.ay," he continues. T am afraid' that if every job or tittle of social conditions that "is afforded ua has to pay, -sve shall be in dire distress as regards our personal .condition. Then look at the financial condition oi a bush settler. The best, scheme of any was the improved farm settlement, and I think much good would be done if that were revived. We have not a class of security that appeals to the financier. * T myself am hampered by the fact that'l have an Li.p. lease. My place was swept by, the fires, of 1908. I had to expend my personal capital upon grass seed and to replace stock which had been destroyed. Hence to-day I am in sore straits. My security as regards the Government ha 3 not increased, despite increased outlay, and, owing to the tenure, I cannot finance elsewhere. My banker would want the freehold." The writer goes on to say .that his own case is typical, and that the only solution of the problem is to sell out. Owing- to the bad state of roads and tracks, most of them, he says, find it somewhat expensive to live in the backblocks, besides which a man could not give Ms wife and family what they are entitled to. 'Sexe is another instructive detail. "During the months from May to September* 190S, he says, "my wife saw another woman but once. Some of our gentlemen who usually talk in the abstract about •unearned increment and such rubbish, have no conception of the disabilities that prevail inland. Often they quote what the early pioneers went through; they forget that social conditions have altered since then. Education has altered the children of those sturdy folk, but to boil it down it comes to this;. Give us metalled roads!"