CORRESPONDENCE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 18 June 1926, Page 10

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE MOUNTAIN-SIDE ROAD. (To the Editor.) Sir, —It is pleasant to see. that the Public Works Department has turned down the wild and .wicked scheme of a motor road around the mountain with a resounding bump. The crass '.selfishness of the idea of disfiguring our noble landmark by a brutal gash along his side for the' sole gratification and l convenience of idle plea-sure-hunters is typical of the utilitarian tendency of the- times. The promoters of this gross and useless desecration of the domain of Panetahi, Potaema and Tahurangi would willingly have spent over £SOOO per mile (of our monies) on its construction, while at the .present time hundreds of our decent, hard-working, back-blocks settlers are unable to get their produce to market by reason of the impassability of their roads. Are we to cater for the lazy motorist who is unwilling to walk along the lovely paths that at present wind around the shoulders of our forest-clad giant, and by so doing blaze* a path of destruction several chains wide through the .beautiful bush that- mantles his slopes? The motorist of the plealsurehunting type. is the modern counterpart of Carlyle’s “gig-men,” but luckily he cannot drive the people as easily as his high-powered, car, and in this case the strong feeling of all local lovers of nature will 1 arise to bar his way. Trusting that tlie pronouncement of the Public Works Department has effectual!v extinguished the smouldering sparks of the agitation, which otherwise might have been 'fanned to ignition, resulting in a blackened, belt where now the green of the stunted forest blends with the pallor of the snows above.—l am, etc., PUKE HAITPAPA. Whareroa, June 17.