SETTLERS' NEEDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 89, 16 April 1927, Page 9

SETTLERS' NEEDS.

REQUESTS FOR ROADS.

DEFINITE PROMISE BY MINISTER.

Settlers of Patetonga met the Min- - istcr of Lands and the Minister oft Public Works in the public hall on! Thursday afternoon, and discussed witaf them the needs of the district. Tho Hon. K. S, Williams said be realised that the main roads were worse than useless to back country farmers if there were no access roads. He would go into the position with his officers, and when the Estimates were being framed he would give the utmost consideration to the claims of the settlers. It largely depended upon what money there was to spare.

With regard to the proposal to make a ponding area in the Patetonga district, tho Hon. A. D. McLeod said it all depended upon the area of land which would be flooded. If only a few acres on the fringe of the pond were to he affected, it would not matter, and tho scheme would have to be pushed ahead, but if thousands of acres on farm land would suffer, then a drainage system, which would have a different effect should be carried e tit. The Minister promised to go into the position with • his officers, and come to a definite decision. A request for a grant »f £2500 waa made by the settlers of Tahuna, who entertained the Minister at tea oil' Thursday evening. The money was required for roads, said Mr. T. EL Lowry. chairman of the Piako County Council, and if the Minister of Public Works could see his way to grant it. the district would go ahead by leaps and bounds. "I Can't Turn you Down." The Hon. K. S. Williams Raid be was sorry he was not in a position to say "All right" to this and every other request, but he assured them that he was in earnest when he promised to sive it his fullest consideration. If ho could give the settlers some, if not all, of the money they he would, be delighted. "I can't turn you down," said the Minister, amid a storm of applause, when a settler named Blackburn, supported by Mr. A. M. Samuel, M.P.

(Ohinerauri), asked that a grant of £500 he made for a road in the Mangawbara Valley, eleven miles from Tahuna. It was explained that for 22 years the settlers had not had a road, and all would have walked off long ere now had it not been for the Blackburn familv.

who have "stuck it" for nine ream.

"11l pet my department to do the* road for you," said Mr. Williams. "What can't be done this year will be done next."