TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 136, 9 June 1905, Page 1

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

With the advent of the wet season, the condition of the roads becomes a eubjecfc for comment. The dusty highways of autumn are converted into the .sin ihy troughs of winter. And so year alter year the bill of-fare is varied to the traveller, with perhaps a month or two thrown in when the roads are in good order. The importanse of servicaable thoroughfares can hardly be over-stated, especially where they run ab right angles to the railway ; and it is difficult to see wby such so/upnlous ca» c should be bestowed upon the iron roads while those for the use of the carts are suffered to be patched and mended in such a hand-to mouth fashion. Of course the reason is to be found in the fact that the State is directly in charge of .'the one service, while the maintenance of the other is entrusted to bodies of atratemrs with limited authority and less inclination to levy rates for the purpose. Speaking more particularly of the main rou ~es of the Colony, it is surely to be do{ lored that the localised system of maintenance should be in vogue; but a btili more deplorable circumstance is that the these main roads have never been properly made. Had a far-sighted policy obtained, instead of a penCy wise-pound-foolish system iv the first place, the annual sum which is literally sunk in the repairs of the roads would havo been smaller by an amount which would have paid the interest on a forger expenditure on construction. Maryborough is not the only country whose thoroughfares are not roekf builij. The Wanganui Herald in an article com plaining of the state of the country roads in winter, and the difficulties which have to be undergone by the back-blocks housewife and, her educable children, says :-~";The remarkable thing about New Zealand roads is that they never get any better. They are made bad, and they remain bad. Roads that were bad a generation ago are bad to day. We have known of their badness ever since the Colony was founded, but oar knowledge has profited us nothing. Tear after year we go on making the same class of thing—roads that would disgust and ruin the trade of a gang of Eastern bandits—and we expect that, by their aid, civilised men will develop a civilised trade and raise our Islands to high rank among the great nations of the world." While not desiring to venture beyond the subject of main roads at present, we recognise that all roads should be formed on the same principle; and it is perhaps not out of our province to suggest that, the new roads which are being formed on the Plaxboarne property by the Depart* aaeot &>a worth constructing on the ©heap-iti-the-long-run system.,

Another theme which the rainy season suggests is the facilities which the town affords to the stranger within her gates in the way of evening—long winter evening—pastime. At the present time there are a great number of strangers in this district — mostly working men whose families reside in other parts of the Colony for the time being. These artisans, in common with their, class, are prone to pass their evenings in reading. This commendable proclivity finds gratification in a large number of instances in the Literary Institute,- where the cheery comfort of artificial heat is preferable to the solitary flrelessness of a board-ing-hcuse bedroom. But, sorry to say, the Literary Institute is wrapped in darkness every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday evenin?; and the artisan magazine reader is sorely put about during the first week or two of bis sojourn in our town to find out, acd recollect, on which nights of the week it is worth his while to set foot oat of doors towards the reading-room* The general opinion of these habitues appears to be highly complimentary to the furnishing and conduct of these public apartments, but always, with the one qualification referred to —the, disadvantage of the *'close" nights. We cannot refrain from urging again the desirability of extending the facilities of the Literary Institute in the direction indicated. A consideration of finance is surely not the stumbling-block.