Backblocks Roads Must Come First

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 46, 25 February 1936, Page 6

Backblocks Roads Must Come First

TARr SEALED HIGHWAYS TO TAKE SECOND PLACE Per Press Association. ELTHAM, Eeb. 24. “ Tar-sealed roads and the like have to take second place until the wants of the men in the backblocks have been attended to,” said the Minister of Public Works (Hon. R. Semple) in the course of his reply to several deputations from local bodies at Eltham today. “Of primary consideration,” he added, “arc the crying needs of backcountry settlers, many of whom have to take a chance and swim rivers in order to reach civilisation.” The Minister added that the Government's generous offer of assistance to striken areas could not be taken as a precedent to be applied to normal times and normal requirements. He emphasised particularly that State assistance was only to meet extraordinary flood damage, where settlers had lost communication with markets and the outside world. New Zealand would have to redistribute its population from the cities to the country, said Mr. Semple, but before that could •be done the Government must give reasonable access to those settlers who had been sent out to the back country apd who were in many cases virtually isolated. , This 1 would give encouragement to others to go on the land.