PUBLIC MEETING AT OXFORD.

Press, Volume XXXI, Issue 4291, 1 May 1879, Page 3

PUBLIC MEETING AT OXFORD.

• .'A well attended public meeting was held in the Boad Board office, Oxford, on Tueiday evening, to; dieouin the important questions: affecting this district, of a direct and short road from that town into the 'Wharfdale country and the importance to the community of the immediate extension of the OxfordMalvern railway aa originally surveyed. Mr H. Marsh waa unanimously voted to .the chair. ■ ' .. ... ;,' . -, ( Ip | I The Chairman explained that, he had not come to the meeting with the intention of presiding, but as it tras their wish he would do so till probably the chairman of the Boad Board might arrive, when he should retire in that gentleman's, favor. The notice referring to the meeting, -which he read, stated they were asked to consider the question of the expenditure of moneys' granted for a road to Wharfdale, the railway extension, the valuation roll of the district, and any other matters of interest. All the Raad Board meinbere wh* might have seen the notices msit have observed that, they were specially invited, although at that time there were none of them present. If Mr J. Dobson, the Board, would kindly read the petition sent to the Board the meeting might be able to leara definitely the action already taken in reference to opening the road communication with Wharfdale. The petition referred to was then read as follows:— To the Chairman of the Oxford Boad Board. _ Sir, —It having come to our knowledge through the public prints, that it is the intention of the Government to expend the money voted for a road to Wharfdale [alias the back country in the Ashley district), we, the undersigned ratepayer* of this district ask that you would be ao good as to call a public meeting to consider this matter, and get an expression of the will of the people, as it was understood that half this money was to be expended in making the road directly from Oxford township to $he Townsend. The diversion of this money from the purpose originally intended is an immediate and permanent injury to the district. We, therefore, ask you to be so good as to hear the settlers at a public meeting on the subject. Signed, David Fishek, and fifty-four other ratepayers. Mr D. Fisher, as the first signer of the petition, said it was needless to remind those present that the Government had voted: £5000 to be expended in opening a road into what was known as the back country, which, in its native state, contained a large area: of very valuable land and several hundred acres of splendid bush. The natural connection of this country with that on this side of the hills was to Oxford, and if half the amount of the sum voted was obtainable as a subsidy their Boad . Board could make a capital road into it. [Applause.! Mr J. Evans Brown, member of the Assembly for the district, had stated that the Oxford Board -was entitled to the sum of £2500 for this purpose, and if this was so, Mr Fisher contended the Board ought to immediately put in a claim for it. [Applause.] The distance between Oxford and the Townsend river was only eeren mflei, and the length of the road would not, he was confident, exceed twelve miles. If the public was only unanimous and the Boad Board would place its shoulder to the wheel, there would be no difficulty in accomplishing the desired object. [Hear, hear.] It was no use attempting to make a circuit of forty-fire miles into the Wharfdale by going ■ round Mount Grey when there was really no difficulty to beset the shorter track of twelve miles. Were the Board to take the matter in hand and exhibit a determined spirit over the > matter, he was credibly informed that Goi moment was prepared to assist them in developing the resources of the back country , with a special grant from the land sales. It , was all nonsense to say the track waa at all I impracticable, seeing that sixteen yeare ago he had taken ft horse by it, and many times i driven sheep over Mount Oxford. The hist • surveyors who wea& he believed, had been . misguided, and the Boad Board had done ' hardly Anything in - the way of rendering \ them assistance in the work of finding tike i road over the easiest grades. Let the Board ; spend £500 or £600 in arriving at some i knotty part of the urate, and he felt very i certain the Government would help them out. i The present state of keeping, quiet was utterly • absnrdV and tm the principle tbafc Heaven i help 3 those who help themselves, let their : representativea be stirred to be up and ading. I (ApplawseV) ; .- - . ■.-..-.., _ ■ •-..„ ■,-.■ .„..• • The Chairman'expressed Bis surprise' that , there were none of the representatives of the

Boad Board in attendance to give some information ia reference to whs* steps had beett taken. ■ . :

Mr J. Mnllin remained that fee petition of the fifty-four who rigoed the petition read at the opening of the meeting was at present a thing of naught with the Board, and it was, perhaps, very fortunate for the member* that there wu not an election to be held shortly. (Hear, hew.) Mr Fisher wished to say that had the petition been in circulation a few days instead of only a few hour?, there would have been a much larger number of signatures to it. Several in the meeting said they had not been granted an opportunity to sign it. •.; Mr J. M.<Jilchnit, though not yet a ratepayer, stated it appeared that if it would only be requisite to make & short road of twelve miles to connect Wharf dale with the railway, the Road Beard would be committing a decided injustice if it did not agitate to bare the road made. (Applause.) Mr F. Leur» wished to say that of the £5000 voted for roads into the back countryhe was reliably informed that £3500 was intended to be taken up by the Oxford Boad Board, and the other moiety by the Ashley Board. The latter only seemed to hare availed itself of the "advantage, and would very soon probably take the whole of the grant if the Oxford Board persisted in its donothing sort of policy, ; There" was on the line of road referred to by previous speakers about 2000 acres of bush -lining. eaoh side of the .road, from which £4000 would' be ab* tamed towards the cost of the work, and surely the Board could make the road with a sumof(£Bsoo2 'IW fact he was convinced,-■fi-bm'wljat tie"Jiad .seen And. h.eard,i;hat the cost per mile "would not* exceed £400, and only £4800 wa^thus required.:, [Applause,] t Mx -i Midline, . during, .a forcible speech"* stated, that he had drawn op the petition, and iwaa. instrumental in having it signed. He ■regretted, haweyer,- thajt, thei Board to whom it was presented heel thought jfifcin $heir wisdom, to put it aside. If the ■ 'members persisted in this, coune with, public •memorials,, it was yeirj fipxtaJxi that those put the Board in power'would hare something sharp to say sooner or later.and-hei might say that a Board composed of nominees' would hardly have dared to act, in suphg*; •mapner ; towards an' influential ;bodj. of t|is JhejraVlic. [Applause/] Withjwepecttowje' iroad, he explained, the; history of- the action-, jtttentoopenupthe Wharfdale. ToMfPerh»i|f they owed the. credit of suggesting such > a, road. It was mooted at a meeting of the,-; Board, but ao heed: was taken of the matter ■ till a public meeting resolved on action-. Through the instrumentality of Mr J. Evans Brown the sum of £5000 was voted, on the clear understanding that the: Oxford Board intended and' would forthwith' put the work into hand, Never, however, did the publip of that important township labour underJ»greater delusion.! [Applause.] -In a kind of a way: ft survey had been made, of the result .of which, moreover, the ratepayers were never informed about. As-time slipped away, the Ashley Board improved the opportunity, l an 3" by its action in surveying for a road, bid fair to leave the Oxford Board in the cooW shadej and profit into the bargain at their [expense. ■'■■ £Applause.\]," ,; When, Mr: : Bkk<ir, ! •the chief, surveyor,>nd Mr MoKerr<iw.'went over- Mount Oxford in quest of a line, they seemed to have' been allowed to 1 flounder about as best they couTd, with a guide who, knew , ac ; much* about the bush and the probably,-as/the track knew about him".: [Hear, hear.j,' .These .gentlemen,,, Jaded,. weary,' and_ torn," .were, no doubt,\ not vtiy favourably impressed,; seeingy.tbat ..they have never; seen the best route at all, and it was quite natural that they should say put up " no roadt , . , ; £Appl*nee.J «W*ok thejrftwent over., the. most difficult line, .and. over a bluff which could «asjly; be avoided. The apathy, shown by'tb!oae whbin this question interested was limply-deplorable, and the Boad Board 'instead of inve»tmg its fanda in reproductive, works the good of the, districtand the colony was willing to allow its money to lay rusting in the bank's strong box. [Appla'uae.]' The Board surely numbered among its members " rasters'' who were afraid j to spend a penny through dread of any trifling increase in their taxation. H» regretted Mr Sladden was not there, for that , gentleman had treated the petition -racy uri« fairly, but from Mr Pearson who seconded him, he expected better " things, after - the latter had made so earnest an expression of good will for the road in his place as ft., member '■' of, ihff Ashley County Council , . The Board probably' expected,' to quench* the, public feeling from some reason not explained. [Applause/] It was not, howover, too late to have the matter set right, and this- agitation: would do gdod, like others of its kind, Bβ witness the. stir over-the Addington workshops, and on the part of the Ashbnrton public, who with praiseworthy, 'effort were endeavoring to form a banking institution. There was no need to fly in the face of the Boad Board. All he had said was to convince them of their error, and when the members, saw what was the wish of the people he thought they might take it up, but.m ; case they did not, why the public would attain its point in another way; [Hear, hear.j The Board in this matter had to hie mind not conserved the interests of the electors.' ' [Applause. •-■-■•:■ '-■' . ■■•■■ ■■ :■-" ' -' ;•■ "'" Mr Pearson, a member of the Board, here asked the chairman to rule the discussion without a motion out of order. . _',' . The Chairman had allowed the foregoing remarks to be made in the good faith that a motion would follow. [Hear, hear].: .> Mr J. G-rimwood explained that'though not a surveyor, he had travelled over to within sound of the river (Towneend) by a track over which a wheelbarrow might go, leaving Oxford at 1.30 p.m. and returning home at 7 p.m. the same day. With the exception of one place, the • cuttings on the road would be no worse than those on the Church road at Oxford. Mr Pearson asked how far the sound of the river might travel. Mr Grimrod continued—Well, about three miles ; but he was nearer it than that. There were two tracks, which meet, and so far as he could see the engineering difficulties were such that there need be no difficulty in overr coming them. . The Board members were stated to have said there was no way down the bluff in one of the tracks, but traffic could go down the other. There was a vast extent of beautiful bush, and this, with the supply of valuable stone, would more than repay the cost of a road. The road through by White Bock might suit a squatter or two, but it was of no real value to the public. [Applause]. ■ ■..-... Mr Mullin desired to say that it was intended always that the two routes should be surveyed J Mr Pearson suggested that each person be only allowed to epeak once. Mr Mullin said it appeared the ratepayers could get no explanation from the only, member of the Board present. They were not prepared, however, to see the Board simply sit like little Johnny Homer, putting in hie thumb. They wanted him to pull out the plum—[Laughter]—and then they might echo the rest of the rhyme. [Applause.] : After some conversation, ■'. . j« '• Mr Mullin mGved, Mr G-rimwooi.aeconded —"That a memorial be drawn up and-pre-sented to the Minister of Works, through. Mr Brown, M.H.8., asking the Government to subsidise the making of a direct road from. Oxford to Wharfdale." Carried unanimously. The Chairman understood that some present -wanted to give an expression of opinion in reference to tie extension of the OxfordMalvern railway. It would be in order to do to now. He .would merely; add that Mr Slactden' had told him.that day" that the engineer had informed b"n the extension was not being taken in hand at present. :■ / ' : ''.' ' -;_ ' Mr E. Griffiths thought it was high time that this vital question was taken in hand. The line was to be paid for by them', to be : maintained by ; them, and had been ordered by them through their representative in, the Assembly, and the engineers as their servants must he peremptorily" ordered to go on with. the work. [Applause.] If the Government carried on much longer in this style of delaying a line like the one in question, it would have to prepare itself for the loss of public support, and others must be put in office to do the work. [Applause.] ' Mr . Grimwood was* surprised to see the Government proposing to take anofcher'line different to the ronte originally *etrrreved. He_ strongly advocated the making of the - line as intended by the second lice. In addition to the summer traffic of timber the 1 CBristehurch market could be supplied during the winter months with hundreds of tons of firewood. This traffic, in addition to employing a large number of men in the winter time, could not be earned on if the cords of wjod were to be carted » great distance tothe Irnel Mr Mardon had heard , that if a-noise was mad* about engineer had stated they would lose i£ Mr Mullin—What nonsense! Another

imeans, of trying to gag the public. : f!*agMenJ :i V.i ■ ■ ,"■■:. ;- , : ' ; Mr Grimwood drew attention to the fact that Bangiora would never have been on s> main line but for the agitation, or the line through the Oust. He did not believe in such reports as that quoted by a previous speaker. Mr Griffiths moved—" That Mr Brown be written to for an explanation of the delay." He was the man, ia his opinion, they had to look to.

Mr Grimwood thought Mr Brown might be too much engaged in other ways, and the best course was to petition Mr Macandrew. Mr B. MoKenzie showed that either of the two originally surveyed, lines were profitable to the third one. A station over the.. Byre. would be very inconvenient to the buih trade, - and a bad crossing for passengers in time* when the Eyre might, be... flooded. .The quantity of sawn timber which was available , each month was 300,000 ft. Then there was the firewood referred to by Mr Gmnwood, and posts and rails. These items were softY cient to keep the line going all the year. Ifow euppoiing the nearest stations were to be at. the Waimakariri and West Oxford, of carriage to reach the line would be nearly prohibitive, while on the other hand if the atatipnand line was contiguous to' theTmih the traffic-'woiiild" Vβ greater, and the Government ■in making certain of the increaied 'freight would ■ receive a return which would more than. pay the interest on the capital. This could be done with sawn timber-.alone. He moved—'f.That *. memorial be, prepared and.'ngaed bj dena fide settlers of the Oxford jdisferict setting out the advantages'of'the' :origmally surveyed line for the Malvern line. , ? -,i ;..-<- s .::^ v ,- :i <l--~rs

Mr Grimwood seconded. : i I-s ■;{■. : The motion wm put and carried by aoclaiaa , tioa.

A, coa^ttea.roi'jyU«m<.^.' w Mareb, J, Heggitt, John to prepare tlte ifeidrial'm' ''trerismit'-Mie

; The Ghaiwnm eorigretnlftf4d;.themßetiiigi on the harmony ofcatepfooSedings. >. •••-.; t> -: A ypte.ei thanks to the chairman concluded the meeting. .s&^raisiio