CORRESPONDENCE.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 1138, 20 January 1903, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE OTAMA BRIDGE, TO THE EDITOR. Sib, —I notice that the Otama farmers are up in arms at last. They are going for the Government for no less a sum than £SOO to save the Otama bridge. The Otama farmers must know —the Southland County ratepayers remember, at any rate—that hundreds of pounds have already been sunk in the Mataura to try and save the Otama bridge. Surely some of them are reasonable men and know that £SOO flung into the river is not going to do them or this bridge much good. It would be much- cheaper to add another span or two to the present bridge and for the local body to take more land, as the old road is washed away, than to go on allowing engineers to waste public money experimenting at their expense. If the Otama farmers were at all alive to their own interests they would long ere this have estatablished a river protection board to deal with the question of river encroachment. The fact, however, is that having such good land a few acres washed a-vay by the river makes little odds to them. But should the long suffering, tax-paying public, see themselves spoiled, year in and year out, for the purpose of fattening these farmers ? These good people should be told that having allowed their stock to eat the natural protection of the banks, the public cannot view with satisfaction the manner they are wasting the heritage of tbe people, and that they will have to alter by learning to help themselves. It is a national shame that the settlers on the Mataura are doing nothing to restrain the devastating action of the river. As one of the tax-paying public, I certainly think the Government would be quite justified in refusing to do anything until these people gave some proof that they were agreeable to take concerted action regarding the adoption of a policy of conservation. With the assistance of the Government, and by means of a general rate much good could be done by an elective river board in the direction of protecting properties and bridges over the river. Until there is something of the kind the Mataura will prove, assisted by tbe farmers, a beautiful sink-hole for the squandering of public money.—l am, etc., BateJaxeb.