"WIDTH OF TIRES ORDINANCE."

Lyttelton Times, Volume XLV, Issue 4717, 29 March 1876, Page 3

"WIDTH OF TIRES ORDINANCE."

TO THB BDITOR QV TBB LTTTEtTOH TIBBS' Sib, Perhaps, you will allow me, a carrier, and a likely sufferer under the above extraordinary Ordinance, to make » few re* marks against its being carried out in its entirety. Very few people are aware of the difficulties carriers up country hare to put up with, in the shape of heavy cuttings, rough stony, roads, and the worst of all, the rivers and their beds. Ontaisly wide tiioa «*o oof

to make ouf Ways more pleasant (apart from the cost of altering ottr waggons), for it h generally known that the draught of a vehicle is affected, more or less, by the width of tiresj and I maintain that it is certainly a mistake to throw more difficulties in the carrier’s way than there are at present. I do not think that those that passed the Act, can have ever been in the back country so as to really know What bad roads mean. I have often read speeches about faculties for opening up the country, and settling people upon it j also, about cheap carriage of goods —the latter especially has been a great cry—witness the disputes about the railway rates. The new Act will certainly have the opposite tendency, and wi’l raise the price of carriage by waggon tn a considerable extent. Most people will agree with me that the waggon is, next to the railway, the best vehicle for the transmission of goods; far before the dray, in being cheaper and safer. The Act, will have the effect of causing more drays to be used, and of this, lam quite sure the dray with its unsteady mode of travelling wi'l do more harm to the roads than the waggon. If a waggon does make ruts, the horses (I am speaking of the six horse waggon, it being most in use) help to fill them in again, and so little harm is done. Besides, even granting that a waggon wheel does heln to cut up a road, so do other vehicles, and tWe is so little need for waggons on the good reads about Christchurch on account of the railways being now extended, that it is a great hardship that those waggons that travel from this Province into the neighbouring ones, should be compelled to use wheels that will make it muoh more difficult to get along, and raise the price of carriage to a serious extent. Of course, it is easy to tell the waggoners they will have to charge more. The public now consider that they pay enough. It is a very difficult thing to do, to raise the price of anything on a short notice. Then again, there is the cost of altering waggons to suit the requirements of the Act, Oat of whose pockets will this come? In the first place, out of the waggoners, and then out of the customers. I suppose, waggoners are not such a wealthy class of men, that they can afford to lose the time and expense of repairs. In any case they will not come off without considerable loss. The weakest generally goes to the wall. There is a part of Mr Vogel’s speech at Wanganui, about the civil servants, that will apply equally as well to the carriers. He said : “ Nobody is willing, no matter how lively the sense of duty he may profess or feel, to bo made the means of influencing distress on a number of men and their families who are in no respect other than deserving, bat who are to be sacrificed to public exigency.” Such, Mr Editor, will be the case to a certain extent with carriers, who have enough to do to make a living and contend with difficulties natural to the country, without the vexations imposed on them by the Broad Tires Act, I could, Sir, go on writing, for the more I write the greater my indignation at the folly of those that made this, I hope, the last of Provincial blunders, but 1 do not wish to trespass on your forbearance; but before I close I should like to ask one question. Mr Meliish, in Court the other day, said he was glad the Police had taken action in the matter. What does this mean ? I believe the Act intends it more for the Road Boards than the Police to interfere. It certainly seems more fitted for the Road Boards, bat I know for certain that one or two Boards in the Northern Districts do not, Sir, wish to have the Ordinance enforced. I should very much like to know at whose beck the Police are acting. I am, Ac., CARRIER (Northern District).