THE POLICY OF INACTIVITY.

Marlborough Express, Volume LIII, Issue 187, 4 July 1919, Page 2

THE POLICY OF INACTIVITY.

As regards construction works, Mr Cheal said that no progress was noticeable, either in the Gisborne or Napier districts. It . was, he said, heart-breaking to see railway works going to ruin—slips on the line, and the temporary wooden sleepers and rails rotting tp such an extent that they would h^fvfe to be renewed when work was resumed.

At Taumarunui, Matiere, and Ohura, Mr Cheal said, he found the same conditions—nothing being done north or south, on the Taranaki-Main Trunk line. Yet those thriving districts turned out £100,000 worth of wool last season, he commented. The tunnel between Okahukura, and Matiere was practically completed, being some 75 chains long, and the settlers were now trying to get the Public Works Department to allow them to utilise it, and so save somemiles of muddy roads in the winter. As a specimen of how public works are carried on, Mr Clieal was shown during his tour one man and one horse in a 10ft. cutting. That was looked upon as "the limit." He went one better, however, by pointing out that on his way to Wnihi and Tauranga. he had passed a 20ft. cutting, in which was working one man and a whelbarrow.

In conclusion, Mr Cheal contended that the bed-rock of the prosperity of any community was in its power to move—internal transit. In the pnst five years this Dominion had hecn "bled* white" for the want of it.