FIFTY YEARS AGO.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXI, Issue 15335, 18 June 1910, Page 10

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

(From the Lyttelton Times of

Saturday, June Iti, 1860.)

This is the first time since the railsway scheme has been fairly brought jbeforS the public that the opportunity 'has been afforded them of gaining by personal observation a practical exIjperience ot the weakness and insuffi'tflettoy of our means of communication . i and transport for carrying out an enlarging trade between port and plains, fivVo recommend it to the notice ol ■those who consider the railway an iin.necessary absurdity, or at the best a scheme which may he wauted some 'twenty years hence. We beg some of ’jtheso gentlemen do go now, and see and judge for themselves. If they ’will take the trouble to walk or ride ’round the Sumner Road from the ferry they will see at /Sumner (if they got f 1 o far over the flat without being. egged) some fifteen or twenty craft ;bar-bound : and if they inquire of the ,men on board they will find that they ■have been there from two to tour ; weeks and may be there as many more, jHaying gained this, information, let ;them proceed on by the far-famed Summer Road, the puny offspring of eight 1 years’ patching and tinkering arid many thousands ol ponnds outlay. Tlipy may by good chance overtake some adventurous carter carrying a load of perhaps two bags of flour, who will consider himself fortunate if lie reaches'Lyttelton without losing lior.se ■or dray or lend, or maybe the whole 'three. A good road lor traffic, is it .not? A fortnight of wet weather has shut it up-; another such fortnight and it will be unfit for use till tlie hot iior’-westers ol spring dry it, and the tinkering* of the Government gang fill up its holes and clear the fallen hanks. ,It is on this river and this road that 'we are to be dependent for an indefinite period for ibo means of transport lor the traflii of the country.