BACKLBOCK ROADS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 641, 7 February 1914, Page 6

BACKLBOCK ROADS.

The Editor. Sir, —"One Who Knows" struck the nail on the head in -r.is reference to' bona fide settlers. They are the usual victims in new districts and the case of the Mangakokopu and Pomerangi roads is but another example of how they get treated. From the very beginning settlers their wives and children, have been on their sections toiling and working in clearing their bush homes, not one shirking the residential requirements. Is it fair to men and women after ten yeas of settlement that there is not a vehicular road to our market town without having first to traverse over eleven miles of road mostly narrow bush tracks. The townsman and the farmer in the land of good roads I do not believe could conceive the condition that these roads are in now, even in the middle of summer. Why, sir, it was only laßt wesk a poor unfortunate pack horse, one of the team that carries his Majesty's mails, lost his footing on a dangerous portion of the Mansakolcopu road and was hurled headlong down the bank, turning a couple of somersaults on th» way, the poor animal just escaping breaking its neck. Suppose a human being had been on that horse the results would havfl been fatal. It is blood curdilng when you think of it. It is bad enough to have to realise this state of things at the beginning, but after ten long years to find roads as bad as ever, it takes the spirit away. It is too horrible to think of, a road not fit for man or beast to travel over. The last money to be expended on the Mangakokopu road was money authorised by the late Government, so that the present one has completely ignored us. Alas! My hopes have been disappointed and shattered. I am not the only backblocker that has had a similar experience. We find that an analysis of conditions during the past few years has been the utter neglect of the bona fide back country settler, andth'at the large amount of moneys for r road Works being so prominently brought before the public has been chiey loans and subsidies, and what thanks is there to any Government to advance money to settlers who are in the position to help themselves. To transpose the words of Solomon: "In the way of such a policy there is no life; and in the pathway thereof there is death." —I am, etc., DISGUSTED.