EPUNI HAMLET ROAD.

Evening Post, Volume LXVI, Issue 55, 2 September 1903, Page 7

EPUNI HAMLET ROAD.

4. "The women folk are walking about in gum boots," remarked a member of a deputation from the Epuni Hamlet that waited yesterday oh the Minister for Public Works. The settlers were put on tho land by the Government, and want to be ablo to get off it occasionally with some degree of comfort ; that is to say, they ask for the gravelling and metalling of the Epuni Hamlet road, and added drainage. With (regard to this needed work, the settlers have been, as the Minister himself put it, between "Mie ■devil and the deep sea" ; that is, between the landlord Government and the rlutt County Council. On the one hand, the State claims to have expended in roading, etc., as much as the land is loaded for, even if the road is mere formation work and incomplete. On the other hand, the local body refuses to tako over and maintain such a road, on the ground that it does not take over roads from private subdividing syndicates unless they are completed up to a certain standard, and that the same rule is good enough for the 'Government. The settler is therefore in danger of paying the Government loading, and the rates claimed by the local body, -njthout benefit from either. The Minister told the deputation that perhaps a mistake had been made at the outset in under-estimating the cost of the roading, which -was not as complete as it might have been ; but at the same time he endeavoured to impress on them the contention that with a greater initial expenditure and better road their loading would have been higher. The deputation was not, however, convinced, being apparently of the conviction that the loading was high enough to earn a better road from the Government, and they went into figures. One settler said they had been loaded for pre-existing fences nof erected by the Government and not of use to the selectors. The Minister said that fences bought with the property were an improvement and must be included as such. Tho settler replied th*t he was loaded for fencing, • but had no fence at all Other grounds of the deputation's claim on the Government, as stated by their Parliamentary representative, Mr. T M Wilford, and by their riding representative m the Hutt County Council, Mr. C VV. Brown, were that the road was really not in a fit condition for the Council- to take over, and that the Government should not compel the -Council to do so till the road was made fit ; that carters and tradesmen had refused to cart over it; that the open drain was dangerous to the children ; that the State was under a moral obligation to its tenants; that the State had made .a splendid investment, the Hamlet having doubled in value ; that there was a gravel deposit j on the Government land. The Minister, asking if the county had taken over anything, vras informed" that it had taken over nothing but the rates two years' ! ,He remarked that in most country districts the Government, in carrying out roading in such cases, did not go beyond formation, " which many counties considered enough ; but in the present case, where there were a number of small valuable sections closely settled — (A settler: Almost a township) — they naturally expected something more in such different conditions. As to the road and drain, he would place the position before Cabinet to see what could be done ; but the 'county ought to do something, too. It ought not to take two years' rates — over £80 — and do nothing.